This Is Not Your Father’s Subscribe Button

For the enthusiast market, driving print subscriptions with online tools requires an array of options that's under constant experimentation.

By Chandra Johnson-Greene
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

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So you’ve got this great companion Web site for your magazine that features exclusive articles, easy-to-use community features and all of the bells and whistles that experts say you need to drive traffic. But how, if at all, is this all helping your print subscriptions?

The online platform has become an active testbed for driving print subscriptions, due to both its low-cost characteristics and a large portion of an engaged viewership that hasn’t yet attached itself to the print product. For enthusiast publishers, where, by definition, customers are particularly active in a market, CM spoke with a group of circulators to see what they’re doing to entice their Web audiences to take the extra step and invest in the complete package. Findings indicate an openness to experimentation, testing and an aversion to complacency.

ACTIVE INTEREST MEDIA

“I think the most important thing in getting online users to subscribe to print is having a Web site that people actually want to go to,” says Debbie Kane, director of partnerships and Web marketing for Yoga Journal, Vegetarian Times and Backpacker. “And the second thing you have to do is test lots of different placements and creative.”

The majority of AIM’s online circulation tactics are originally developed for its flagship publication Yoga Journal and then adapted to the company’s other titles, according to Kane, and various placements are used to attract users to subscribe, including pop-ups, embedded links and cover ads. The typical conversion rate of traffic to print subs is in the neighborhood of 1-2 percent, depending on the size of title or audience.

“In 2007, we received several thousand Web orders each month for Yoga Journal. We get roughly one-third of sub orders from pop-ups, one-third from embedded links, and one-third from cover ads. We’ve implemented all of those placements onto the Vegetarian Times site, and we’ve seen the Web orders double, while the traffic remains flat. We feel like it’s been a success. One of my goals for this year is to do that on all other AIM titles—to maintain the success that we have.”

Kane added that the amount of Web orders that AIM receives is also determined by seasonality. “Especially with our health/fitness titles, we see that in the beginning of the year, right after Christmas, people are thinking of getting healthy again.”

Sign-Ups Vs. Pay-ups

Kane also found that when it comes to pop-ups and embedded forms, people tend to behave differently depending on which one they choose.

“For a while, we had the same creative on each for Yoga Journal. But we found that our pay-up wasn’t the same in both places. Now we’ve changed things to push people to pay in one of those, and just fill out the form in the other. It can affect the overall volume of orders, but we like the mix of sign-ups versus pay-ups.”

Premiums, Bonus Offers, Special Pricing

When it comes to making a decision about whether or not to offer premiums on Web-based sub offers, Kane says that it depends on the title.

“We’ve tested editorial premiums, bonus offers, and price changes,” she says. “But you have to look at it all separately and make sure it stays within your company’s goals. And it’s not the same for everyone, there are different economics for each magazine. But overall, all of those things can work because with the Web, the acquisition costs are a lot less than other sources, depending on the magazine, so you can do a slightly better offer on the Web.”

SOURCE INTERLINK

Steve Aster

According to Steve Aster, president of consumer marketing, Source Interlink Media, the easier the user experience is, the higher the amount of orders a Web site will receive.  “The form should be one-stop shopping, you click through, fill out the form and that’s it,” he says.

Aster says that the company has been spending a lot of time on its online sub business (for fiscal 2009, the company expects to spend $14 million of its $39 million capex on digital) because the costs are much lower and they tend to result in high pay-ups derived from credit cards.

“My philosophy is that I have to get you in the door,” says Aster. “So if you pay using a credit card, we’ll give you a two-year subscription for the price of one. Or if you are a subscriber to magazine X, you can get the option of a subscribing to another magazine at a reduced price. Offering our customers incentives to do something is proactive for our business.”

Renewal System 2.0

Source’s main focus when in comes to online circ marketing right now is the relaunch of its online order system. “It was built many years back and we’ve recently created a 2.0 version, which not only has better coding and software, but a great ability to do what we want when it comes to renewals,” says Aster.

“Our biggest problem was that if you have multi-level pricing, how do you protect an older subscriber from getting the lower introductory price? We wanted to make sure that we protect our integrity. This updated systems create a better environment for cross promotions and greater flexibility in renewing subscribers.”

Aster adds that getting people to renew online is a big impetus for the company in general. “We always look to save money so we don’t have to mail [renewal notices]. But you can’t just say to people, ‘Go online and renew.’ So we talked about offers and contests, because we think it’s important to understand our customers’ behavior and what will get to them to go online and renew.”

BONNIER

Bonnier Corporation, which publishes an array of outdoor, marine and travel enthusiast titles, is in the midst of changing the way it approaches online circulation marketing.

“Under Time Inc., when people on the Web signed up for [the former Time4Media titles], they did so under automatic renewal,” said Robert Cohn, consumer marketing director at Bonnier. “Although those subscriptions had better long-term value, it depressed response. So we phased it out. Now, we’re trying to take offers that have been successful in direct mail and use them online.”

Bonnier uses banners on its sites to direct traffic to the online sub form, says Cohn, but it’s now in the process of testing different offers and premiums. “For Field & Stream, we’re trying a free carry-on bag. And we have a t-shirt offer for Popular Science that did very well on our college tour last year. For Ski, we’re testing some posters, and for our marine titles we’re testing a hat.”

Cohn explained that his staff carries out its testing in three phases. “Phase one is just testing and measuring to see how well each offer does,” he says. “In phase two, we look at what has worked in other sources, such as direct mail. And in phase 3, if an offer has worked in one title, we’ll introduce it to the others.”

E-Newsletters and Email Blasts

The company also uses e-newsletters—which go out to existing print subscribers as well subscribers who sign up online—to promote sub offers. The offers appear in every edition of the newsletter, except when advertising space is sold out.

When launching a new magazine, like Science Illustrated, Bonnier also uses email blasts with subscription offers to attract subscribers. “For example, we sent out a special introductory offer [for Science Illustrated] to Popular Science email newsletter recipients, which is our largest email list, and we plan to expand outbound email programs like this within the next 6-9 months,” says Cohn.

IDG

David Cobb

For PC World, Macworld and Gamepro, consumer marketing director David Cobb says that his team also uses traditional tactics such as providing a subscribe button on the home page, offering special rates via email to those registered for the titles’ e-newsletters, and rewarding new subscribers with premiums such as CD-roms with editorial content. 

But for Cobb, staying abreast of any technological developments at one’s fulfillment house is one of the most important things an audience developer can do when looking for ways to get online readers to convert to print.

“Our fulfillment provider has a lot of great tools for us to use,” he says. “They have so many tools we can use to upsell and cross-sell. There have been a lot of breakthroughs [in online circulation marketing] lately because of what the fulfillment houses can now provide.”

One of the tools that IDG uses is its fulfillment provider’s “smart” renewal system, where subscribers are automatically notified if they are up for renewal when they go online to check their subscription information. They are also offered a special renewal rate based on their history with the magazine.

Cobb also said that the company is working on renewal campaigns that will combine mail efforts with the Web, which he describes as “logistically complicated.”

“We want to get to a point where we can mail out a renewal effort that prompts the subscriber to go to the online form, log in, and renew,” he says. “Controlled magazines have mastered this, but it’s harder for paid magazines because of the mail plans, keying and the different offers that can pertain to different areas. But it’s something that we’re working on and that we’re hopeful about.”    

A Print “Awareness” Campaign Directs Readers to the Web

While Storm Mountain Publishing founder Brad Fayfield admits that the Boulder-based company has not focused enough on online circulation marketing for Freeskier and Snowboard, it has still managed to generate a decent percentage of subs via online promotions and e-newsletter marketing. In fact, 38 percent of Storm Mountain’s new subscribers came from its online properties in 2007.

“Our marketing is fairly basic,” says Fayfield. “On Freeskier.com, we have a rotating banner, a subscribe button on the bottom left-hand corner of the page, and another button on the navigation bar hidden under the Magazine category. But the plan in the future is to get more landing pages so people can subscribe right there in the window. We want to do more interesting things. For example, we have started doing some sub promotions through our video assets.”

One tactic that Storm Mountain has used is a print campaign that partners with pro athletes and uses tongue-in-cheek creative to drive subscriptions by sending readers to the Web site. The program has not been tracked, Fayfield notes it’s primarily an awareness campaign so far, but the simple message tied to the “halo effect” provided by the pros is a powerful combination.