Offering advertisers a better alternative

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 1992 by Alan E. Sanderfoot

An impeccable pink sheet, strong sales presentations and good demographic research help Utne Reader sell smart.

Utne Reader, named after its founder Eric Utne, is like a sieve in which interesting ideas get stuck. The editors at this Minneapolis-based bi-monthly continually sift through literally thousands of alternative magazines - from the Louisiana state-prisoner-produced Angolite to the musician-oriented Keyboard to the well-known Village Voice to the leftish Z Magazine - and what they pull out is a creditable compendium of alternative reporting and writing. A hip version of Reader's Digest, Utne Reader touts itself as a smart magazine for smart people.

But such a clever publications requires an equally enlightened sales strategy, and Utne Readers has one. While many other lifestyle magazines are down in ad pages, the title has realized substantial growth, according to advertising director Michael Tronnes. For example, 1991 ad pages totaled 294, up from 247.5 in 1990; and ad revenues have increased by more than 50 percent, thanks in part to steadily increasingly rate base (now 260,000).

So what's Utne Reader's secret? Simply put, the magazine is good at oneupmanship. If competitors have clean circulation, Utne Reader's is impeccable. If they have strong sales presentations, Utne Reader's is better targeted and customized. If they have good demographic research, Utne Reader's seems to blow theirs right out of the water.

Tronnes, a laid-back magazine junkie in jeans and a sweatshirt, deserves much of the credit for establishing Utne Reader's advertising story, which begins with strong circulation. "We have the cleanest pink sheet you could have," he says, attacking those magazines that use (or abuse) premiums or slash subscription prices to maintain rate bases. "We get $18 dollars for six issues, with no discounts or premiums," says Tronnes. He adds, "That always gets people interested during a presentation."

One such person is David Verklin, senior vice president and corporate media director at Hal Riney & Partners/San Francisco, which placed advertisements in Utne Reader for GM's Saturn. Verklin is impassioned as he raves about Utne Reader's clean Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) statement. "We happen to be the Shiites of circulation," he explains, adding, "We're circulation-aholics. If there's a single message we preach to publishers, it's |Get your ABC statement in order.'"

Utne Reader has been steadily increasing its circulation through a heavy reliance on direct mail. For each of the past few years, the magazine has sent out three to four million direct-mail solicitations. During that time period, circulation has doubled and the magazine has revised its rate card six times.

Although some advertisers still consider Utne Reader too small for their attention, publisher Craig Neal is not concerned. "Big circulation is not our goal," he says. "We've grown profitably and we are going to increase circulation at a risk."

This carefully managed growth is viewed positively by many of the magazine's current crop of advertiser. Adds Verklin, "I like Utne Reader's relatively small circulation because it translates into relatively low out-of-pocket costs for advertising."

Customizing is key

Because the title seeks ads from a wide range of advertisers, it spends a great deal of effort customizing its media kits and sales presentations. Dozens of subscriber demographic sheets relating to various product categories stand ready for insertion in highly targeted media kits. And special sets of presentation boards for numerous product categories show demographic statistics and highlight related editorial that has appeared in the magazine.

"One of the first we try to do in a sales presentation is place Utne Reader within the realm of other magazine," explains Tronnes, who closely follows approximately 30 other consumer titles. "Editorially, we're a little like a lot of magazines. So it's important to us to know all the other magazine, to know how to talk about them."

Pitching the numbers

Tronnes employs 1990 market research from Mediamark Research Inc. (MRI) to conduct his own perception/reality campaign against his competitors' strengths. For example, The Atlantic is known as an intellectual magazine, but Tronnes uses MRI data to show that Utne Reader has a higher percentage of readers who are college educated. Similarly, although The New Yorker is known for its professional/managerial readers, Utne Readers has a greater percentage of such subscribers. And, Esquire, known for its affluent readers, is actually below Utne Reader subscribers in household income (probably because the Esquire reader is younger and single). Although market research is an old tool for publisher, Utne Reader makes use of its research in a way that makes it difficult for media buyers not to pay attention.

There are 4,500 people on Utne Reader's advertising comp list. "I've always said nobody's going to buy advertising in Utne Reader unless they read the magazine," Tronnes says. To help the title stand out, Tronnes lays out about $1,000 each issue to bind in promo inserts directed at this audience. Recently, the title has been customizing these inserts for different product categories, much as a smart job applicant revises his resume and cover letter according to the job. "Frankly, I'm surprised how many magazines don't do it," Tronnes says, emphasizing that the inserts are more effective when they look like an ad and not a traditionally type-heavy letter from the publisher.