Tapping Catalog Shoppers

Circulation Management, Nov, 1999

Various links with catalogs have been explored by magazine publishers over the past several years. Now, one that's been successful, but limited in scope, is expanding to encompass a larger range of titles.

BelcaroGroup, Inc., a Greenwood Village, CO-based publisher of catalog directories, or "catalogs of catalogs," recently began a push to get as many as 200 magazine titles into its directories by year's end. The directories are: Home Fair (crafters and collectors), Home Spaces (home and garden) SportFolio (men's leisure and hobbies) and Shop at Home (a broad female audience).

In addition to mailing about 30 million of the catalogs each year (Shop at Home accounts for about half of that number), 70 percent of catalogs and magazines in the program appear on the Belcaro Web site, www.shopathome.com.

Up to now, only about 35 niche titles, from publishers such as Reiman Publishing (Taste of Home, Quick Cooking), House of White Birches (Crochet World, Plastic Canvas World, Cross Stitch), and Clapper Communications (Cross Stitcher, Pack-O-Fun, Crafts and Things) had been featured among the plethora of catalogs.

But Belcaro recently broke broader ground by signing six Hearst titles for tests on the Internet: Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Popular Mechanics, Sports Afield, Town & Country and Country Living Gardener. According to Bridget Wells, director of agency and modeling services for Hearst Magazines, the titles being tested on the Internet will move into the print directories in January, and more Hearst magazines may follow. "If the fulfillment and customer service capabilities are there, as well as the orders, we'll roll with more titles next year," she notes.

Belcaro has also added other publishers in recent months, including Time Ventures, F&W Publications, August Home Publishers and Weisner Publishing.

The program "is much cheaper than dropping 100,000 mail pieces to get a 1 percent response," claims Karleen Bolin, Belcaro's director of national sales and publishing.

Belcaro reports that the average directory reader requests eight catalogs and magazines per order. (Each catalog or magazine gets a square, with 10 publications to an 8 1/2" X 11" page.)

The program offers two types of plans: prospect generation, in which the magazine pays 60 cents per name for inquiries; and subscription generation, in which prospects receive a 90-day free trial, after which the subscription price is posted to a credit card.

With prospect generation, magazines have unlimited remail usage and keep 100 percent of any orders and renewals. Subscription generation remits 50 percent of the sub price to the publisher under the current introductory offer (running through the end of the year) and 10 percent thereafter.

Clapper Communications has had four of its niche magazines in the program for three years. Despite a low volume to date, Stuart Hochwert, VP, marketing and sales, is bullish on its potential. "It's an interesting concept," he says. "They bring us qualified leads, and the conversions are a little better than direct mail. If they could get the volume up, we could cut back on direct mail."

F&W Publications is testing the subscription generation program with four titles: Writer's Digest, Decorative Artist's Workbook, The Artist's Magazine and Popular Woodworking. "I think it's a creative initiative," says corporate marketing director David Lee. "Its success or failure for a given magazine will, of course, depend on the affinity between the specific 'catalog of catalogs' and the magazine."