Soup-to-nuts circulation outsourcing catches on - magazine circulation

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct 15, 1993 by Lorne Manly

Single-title or smaller publishers who want to cut circulation costs have another full-service circulation management company to which they can turn--and Westport, Connecticut-based Circulation Services, Inc., now has competition. Beginning this month, Robert Cohen, president of his eponymously named consulting firm in Miami and New York, has established a full-service circulation division, tentatively called ProCirc.

Although there are numerous circulation consultants, few offer soup-to-nuts circulation management along the lines of ProCirc and the seven-year-old CSI. Cohen, who describes his venture as the circulation equivalent of managed healthcare, hopes to attract small or independent publishers who lack the clout and economies of scale available to larger peers. His first two clients are Italian Vogue and the London Review of Books. Cary Zel, formerly circulation manager at Time, will run the day-to-day operations.

Dan Capell, editor of "Capell's Circulation Report," views such companies as a boon to single-title and smaller publishers who "can't justify spending a lot of money for top circulators." But he cautions that, as with any outsourcing situation, publishers should expect to keep a close eye on the process. "There's got to be someone back at the store with circulation expertise to manage the outside supplier," he says.

Publishers can choose their services, including fulfillment, newsstand, print-order, distribution, new source development and postal and circulation audits. Fees range from $3,000 to $8,000.

CSI's 12-person staff offers a similar array of services for a monthly retainer. CSI president Rosalie Bruno, a former circulation director at Newsweek and Knapp Communications, declines to disclose fees but guarantees that clients (who include Worth, Garbage and Wilson Quarterly) "pay less than if they had to staff it themselves."

Doing without a circulation department hasn't troubled Worth in the year since it outsourced its circulation functions. (See "Worth lays off its circulation department," Folio:, October 1, 1992, page 29.) The 275,000-circ, bi-monthly magazine is "thrilled" with CSI's performance, according to COO Alison Parks. Worth's cost per direct-mail order has been slashed by 60 percent, and it has saved about $200,000 overall.

Bruno maintains that "control isn't a matter of mileage. Control is setting policy and approving budgets and setting goals and objectives. So control is in the hands of the publisher all the time."

Adds Cohen: "It's a lot easier to fire your outsourcing company than your circulation staff."