Video-sold house plans to boost Hanley-Wood revenues

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 1, 1990 by Ellen Tulin

Video-sold house plans to boost Hanley-Wood revenues

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Hanley-Wood introduces Builder's Best Homw Designs -- its first consumer title -- in February, it will be supporting the quarterly magazine with a 15-to 2-minute video designed to sell house plans.

"The magazine shows the elevation and the floor plans. We hope the video will help sell the complete working plans for the house, which will be an important source of revenue for us," says publisher Michael Tucker.

The video will cost readers $9.95, which will be deducted from the $300 to $500 cost of the house plans should a reader buy them.

Revenue from the sales of house plans featured in the magazine will be shared with the architects and designers, Tucker says.

"We'll take orders for the house plans over an 800 number and fax them to the architects, who will fulfill the orders," he explains.

Produced by an outside firm for an undisclosed amount, he video will feature a room-by-room tour of one of the homes featured in Builder's Best Home Designs, a collection of 200 houseplans from designers around the country. The video will be scripted, directed and updated on an annual basis by the editorial staff. Whether it will showcase advertisers' products has yet to be decided. "It's a possibility, if we get the right situation," Tucker says. "However, advertisers probably won't want to sponsor the video unless their products arein the home we select."

The video will be promoted in Builder's Best Home Designs, which will be sold on newsstands for $3.95; distribution will be 100,000 copies. Other Hanley-Wood titles include Builder, Remodeling and The Journal of Light Construction. -- E.T.