Playing it smart: going global means finding readers, managing editorial, delivering the goods, and getting paid in currency you can use

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 1, 1990 by Susan Hovey

Playing it smart

From recognizing nuances in the language of a direct mail piece to settin up fulfillment or printing operations overseas, U.S. publishers face a continually evolving challenge when it comes to finding and keeping foreign subscribers and readers. Whether the subject be 1992 and the European Economic community, or, closer to home, the establishment of a new, less expensive international mail category for publications going into Canada, the idea of the global office has made international circulaiton a hot topic at companies, conferences and cocktail parties serving the magazine industry.

"It is hart to give an overview of Europe that will stand the test of even a few months," says publishing consultant Robert Abramson, referring to the head-spinning sweep of events across that continent.

Meanwhile, the technological advances coming out of Asia and the Pacific Rim make those regions attractive markets for publishers as well. In assessing the change, Florence Leighton, chairman of Dillon, Agnew & Marton, international list broker and direct marketing agency, says, "Ten years ago, there were perhaps a third of the list vendors in Europe and Asia that there are today."

This spring, McGraw-Hill set up a telephone customer service operation in Galway, Ireland, to go along with the foreign subscription fulfillment house the company opened there in 1988. "It's reasonable to expect subscribers in Europe to call Ireland rather than Hightstown, New Jersey [where U.S. subscription inquiries are handled]," says James Eller, general manager of the multipublication circulaiton department.

McGraw-Hill expects to save at least a few million dollars through the Galway subsidiary, which allowed the company to convert the data entry work previously done by four outside vendors into one operation. A telecommunications line links the facility to the Hightstown data center. "It's really no different from any other in-house fulfillment operation," Eller explains. "The global office is really happening."

Thanks to the increasingly widespread use of the fax machine, as well as developments such as International Business Reply Service (adopted last December at the Universal Postal Union Congress), the international prospect can now respond more quickly and efficiency to a direct mail offer from a U.S. publisher.

For weekly titles such as Crain Communications' Advertising Age, the global office means getting the product to the foreign subscriber while the news is still hot. And with the rise in the number of British-owned ad agencies (including Saatchi & Saatchi, the second largest agency in the world), that means the 1,000 subscribers in London expect to see their copies of the magazine first thing Monday morning, just like the people In New York. To do that, Ad Age uses a re-mailer, Yellowstone International Corporation, which picks up those copies Saturday morning at the printer in Chicago and puts them on a British Airways flight. Because thetitle is registered as a newspaper, it is allowed to clear British customs on Sunday, after which it is distributed by Yellowstone carriers between midnight and 5 AM Monday morning.

The cost of a year's subscription to Ad Age-with expedited air delivery--is $202 in Western Europe, compared to $76 on the domestic front, according to circulation manager David Kelly. The magazine receives about 5,000 of its 90,000 circulation from international readers.

"It's getting easier to find a vendor that can handle expedited international service at fairly inexpensive costs," says Joyce McGarvy, Crain's distribution director. "Suddenly, they're everywhere."

Finding subscribers

Of course, before you can start worrying about how best to get your magazine into the hands of your subscribers, you have to find them. "On a multinational level," says Leighton, "I think publishers go out there with blinders half the time. There are a lot of fine local-language publications in the world. Your magazine has to be bettern than, or at least an adjunct to, what people can get locally."

Leighton estimates that in the past two years alone, the number of national response mailing lists (lists representing a specific foreign country) has probably quadrupled. "The growth has been enormous," she asserts. While it remains to be seen how well many of those lists perform, the reason for the growth is clear: The market for multinational lists (many of which originate in the United States and the United Kingdom) seems to have reached its saturation point, as publishers continue to hammer the same names over and over.

"I'm disappointed," says Ruth Naylor-Smith, managing director of Mardev Ltd., another leading international list broker and manager. "I don't think we've seen many changes in the international list market in the last five years. The lists that have grown tend to be indigenous country lists, where you've not got the same proven English language ability. The truly multinational lists, which seem to work best for everybody, are fairly incestuous. They're growing, but they're growing from each other."