WEB INNOVATIONS BRING CHEER on the GIFT FRONT

Circulation Management, April, 2001 by Barbara Love

While HTML compatibility issues can be tricky, publishers who've tried graphically enriched email formats describe these as a next frontier worth conquering. One of Hearst's early email tests, which went out months before the the peak November/December response window, didn't generate many orders but turned out to be a great way to identify which donor prospects could receive HTML emails. A follow-up HTML effort in December, boasting rich colors and graphics, definitely paid off, according to Berger. "Using HTML messages, where possible, works for us," he says.

DRIVING PROSPECTS TO THE WEB

Magazines also upped their use of traditional media--including direct mail, inserts, wraps, packages attached to magazines, and television--to drive donor prospects to the Net for ordering.

"The Reader's Digest site was much more robust in 2000, and we did more promotion," sums up Zier. RDA also took greater advantage of inexpensive promotion opportunities through its magazines, books and home entertainment products--"something I strongly believe in," Zier adds.

"We promoted the idea of ordering gift subs through the Web site everywhere that we could," says Conrad. For instance, Boston attached gift packages that pushed ordering on the Web to the September, October and November issues sent to all subscribers who had been donors in 1999. The magazine also mailed packages touting Web gift-giving to non-subscribing donors, expires and selected outside lists.

Of course, even traditional promotions that hype the Web virtually always give recipients traditional response options, as well. And converting existing donors to the Web isn't all that easy.

"We have a very well-established, annual gift-giving business through the mail," notes Hearst's Berger. "So, some gift business is coming in through the Web, but most of it is still coming in on paper. I don't think we drove that many [existing donors] to the Web."

ON-SITE GIFT PROMOTION

Magazines generally took a relatively simple approach to on-site gift promotion last season. Most used short, offer-oriented copy, and perhaps a festive graphic or two, to steer prospects to a click-through button.

As is still true with Net subscription promotion in general, however, securing adequate space on the home page can be a challenge for circulators.

"If we don't have exposure on the home page, we're dead in the water," says Playboy's Rotunno. "This year, we got a permanent banner in the upper left-hand corner of the page for promoting gifts. Most of the orders came through that. We hope to be more aggressive with gifts on the home page, but there's a lot of competition for space from other areas of the Playboy franchise, including auctions, the Playboy Store, and our CyberClub site."

Some publications--including the Southern Progress magazines, Esquire and Cosmo Girl!--tried pop-ups (aka interstitials), to excellent effect. "Holiday pop-up boxes work very well on the home page," confirms CDS's Duffy. "Some people find them annoying, but they really pull in traffic."