Vim & Vigor's editorial license - Magazine Strategies

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August 1, 1993 by Debby Patz

Marketing hospital services via custom publishing is at the heart of this health magazine's recent growth.

Like any other business, a hospital needs paying customers. It's a simple but sometimes overlooked fact that Vim & Vigor has parlayed into a robust venture. The title was conceived in 1985 to market the services of the Baptist Hospital Group in Manatee, Florida. But since its purchase by Phoenix-based McMurry Publishing in 1989, Vim & Vigor has charted an aggressive course. The publication is now licensed as the customized marketing vehicle for 27 hospital groups, representing 67 different hospitals, around the country. Last year, Vim & Vigor's total combined BPA-audited circulation grew by 105 percent, to 679,310.

Each issue of the standard-size quarterly features 50 health-oriented, national pages written by staff writers and freelancers, plus 22 customized, local pages written by regional editors--generally hospital marketing or communications directors. The local pages allow a specific hospital to promote itself. Vim & Vigor also maintains a library of over 400 articles, 200-plus pieces of original art and photographs, and 90 customizable ads for hospital services. Tagged as the "Family Health Magazine," each issue sports custom coverlines, flags and photo insets of local personalities, along with the feature story that appears on covers nationally. All of the 27 versions are edited in Arizona for stylistic seamlessness.

"Our goal," says editor Fred Petrovsky, "is for McMurry Publishing to be invisible. We want the reader to say, 'Look at this great magazine that such-and-such hospital puts out.'"

But the magazine itself is just the beginning of Vim & Vigor's customized offerings, all of which are designed to increase awareness of and confidence in the licensed hospital while saving it money. Says publisher Preston McMurry, "We can demonstrate |to the hospitals~ that through the use of various added-value elements, they can license Vim & Vigor without increasing their operating budgets." Licensing costs for the magazine vary, depending on the size of the participating hospital (which currently ranges from 155 to 850 beds) and the size of its mailing list (currently anywhere between 10,000 and 55,000), but McMurry figures costs average about $1 per issue each quarter.

So, what do hospitals get in return? For one thing, Vim & Vigor assists them in compiling circulation lists, primarily targeting successful, influential community leaders with household incomes of $100,000-plus who receive the magazine on a complimentary basis. To develop the lists, the publication matches hospital lists against its own data, purging the duplicates. The magazine also identifies specific groups of prospects--e.g., ex-patients or doctors--for segmented direct mailings and inserts. In addition, wraparound covers are available, either to send to the entire list or portions thereof. Each issue regularly carries a bound-in response mechanism of the hospital's choice.

Licensees are especially encouraged to use Vim & Vigor's reprint services, publishing the text for brochures, pamphlets and reports in the magazine, then reprinting the material for later use. "Hospitals do any number of different types of print collateral," says Christopher McMurry, director of marketing and Preston McMurry's son. "We can print those things with the same quality at the same quantity, and the money that's saved will underwrite the cost of the magazine" for the hospital.

Say, for example, that a hospital has budgeted $80,000 to send a 50-page annual report to 5,000 people. Instead of using an outside service, the hospital can print the report in the magazine, adding 32 pages to the existing 22 at $1,000 a page. The report thus reaches all of the magazine's circulation in that area for only $32,000. Even factoring in the cost of additional reprints, the elder McMurry figures that the hospital would save as much as 85 percent over the cost of a freestanding product. The reprint option extends to anything the hospital wishes to print in the magazine, including future newspaper inserts, community calendars and direct mailings.

In addition, Vim & Vigor also operates as an advertising agency, creating original ad campaigns for licensees' use in either Vim & Vigor or other publications. Hospitals are charged only for production costs, not creative time, notes Palmer Del Vecchio, a veteran of Young & Rubicam Advertising and currently the magazine's creative director of advertising. And because the agency service is included in the licensing fee, "it behooves you to use it," he says, "since you already paid for it."

The licensing fee also includes the use of Vim & Vigor Radio. Currently in nearly 90 markets nationwide, the program is a series of 26 four-minute segments, including two minutes of commercial time. The feature spots are consolidated by Petrovsky from previously printed material. Produced and syndicated by the Kohler Radio Network in Wisconsin, the programming is made available by Vim & Vigor and is cost-free to the area station of the licensee's choice.