5 solutions to database problems: common challenges faced by publishers are tackled by the experts

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Annual, 1997 by Lambeth Hochwald

If your database is the least popular resource at your office, figure out whether the problem lies in training, says Nathan. "I'd quickly try to get people more comfortable with the system," he says." If it's built on old technology, you're working with your hands tied behind your back. Newer relational systems enable you to mold data, to get it into and out of the system more easily."

Make a commitment

Ultimately, you can't dabble in database marketing, says Jed Lafferty, senior vice president of marketing at Farm Journal Inc., publisher of five agricultural titles including Farm Journal, which has a 675,000-name ratebase. The company has maintained an in-house database since 1982."You have to make a huge commitment to data information systems--it's a lot more than a circulation file with a name and an address. You have to be ready to create data records on subscribers that may contain over 50 fields of information"

The database is the core of the company's commitment to serving readers, adds Lafferty."Understanding more about who our customers are was an editorial mission that became a circulation strategy and then a competitive strategy," he says. "Everything we do is driven off our database."

Lambeth Hochwald is a freelance writer based in New York City formerly a senior writer for Folio:.