8 Ideas You Can Use to Satisfy Your Subs

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 2003

Byline: GEOFF VAN DYKE

Subscription marketing is much like dating. In the beginning, there's hand-holding and candlelight dinners aplenty, but once the relationship matures, well, let's just say no one's spending a lot of money on candles anymore.

Consider a rather flirtatious insert card in a March issue of New York. To catch your eye, it offers an 86 percent savings, then coyly asks, "Why pay retail?" To seal the deal, it promises, "week after week we'll help you live New York life to the fullest" - all for just $17.97.

Now consider what a loyal New York customer gets when renewing a subscription: zilch. No rock-bottom pricing. No thank-you-for-your-loyalty gift. Just the magazine, for $29.97-$12 more than the new guy pays. How can that be? Where's the fairness?

Forget fairness. That's how the subscription game is played. All the marketing glitz and glam is lavished on new subscribers, while longtime customers are stepped up to higher pricing. Part of this strategy stems from common sense - devoted readers are willing to pay more for their favorite magazines. But the constant need to lure new business is also responsible. Now that sweepstakes companies have been vanquished and response to direct mail dwindles, consumer marketers are under unyielding pressure to replenish subscriber lists.

"The demands of making sure that they've got enough to deliver the ratebase seems to be so all-consuming that people don't spend enough time keeping what they've got," says Dan Capell, editor of "Capell's Circulation Report." In fact, consumer marketers devote roughly 70 percent of their time to acquiring new customers versus just 30 percent on renewals, according to Capell.

But current economics may change the way consumer marketers spend their day. As acquisition costs spiral upward, publishers are becoming as interested in keeping existing customers as they are in collecting new ones. "Everyone at this point is looking for some kind of opportunity," says Bruce Rosner, vice president of magazine circulation for American Express Publishing. "That old adage about how valuable our current customers are - that it's cheaper and easier to renew a customer - is ever more true."

To keep subscribers hooked, publishers don't necessarily have to play with pricing or invest in tons of renewal testing. In many cases, Folio: has learned, loyal bands of subscribers would prefer a little well-placed coddling, a note of recognition or extra consideration. Here are eight ideas that will help bolster subscriber satisfaction.

* Let readers play, too.

For the past eight years, Rodale's Backpacker has held a "gear-tester" contest in which the magazine asks subscribers to explain why they'd make a great hiking partner, and what qualities or experiences they think would make them a great gear tester. The four winners get to "go somewhere fantastic," as well as test the latest hiking equipment, says John Dorn, Backpacker's editor-in-chief. For the last two years, the winning readers were sent to Denali National Park in Alaska, where they were outfitted in brand-new gear (some of which they got to keep) for a trek through the landscape. Once back home, the winners were asked to praise or pan the gear for the pages of the magazine.

"The point is to create reader loyalty," says Dorn. "We're looking for readers to show up in the pages of the magazine - it's an organic opportunity to tell them we love them, value their opinion, and want them back. One of the perks is that it helps us with strong renewals."

* Custom-build content.

Special editorial sections are created all the time for advertisers, but tailored edit pages can also provide added value for loyal subscribers. In the mid-1990s (around the same time the sweepstakes and stampsheets started running into problems), Sports Illustrated created a targeted editorial section in the magazine, called "Golf Plus," that it still publishes today. Through surveys and list overlays, golf-loving subscribers qualify to receive the editions of the magazine that carry the bonus section.

Readers who get "Golf Plus" have higher renewal rates than those who don't, according to Jonathan Shar, SI's consumer marketing director. And because of its success, the magazine developed another targeted editorial section, "SI Adventure." It's for extreme-sports lovers and is now in its second year. "If you can isolate someone's interests in sports or what they do, the research has shown that these are real drivers in overall magazine satisfaction," adds Shar.

* Give 'em more of what they want.

It turns out that not everyone reads Playboy for the articles. The men's magazine spent years testing all sorts of premiums with its renewal offers, only to discover one naked truth: What subscribers really want is more nudity. The incentives that work best are editorial premiums featuring females au naturel. "Subscribers don't really care much for merchandise premiums," says Phyllis Rotunno, vice president, subscription circulation, for Playboy, which has tested everything from golf-related merchandise to Playboy caps and shirts.