Fax reader service offered by CMP; direct ad response eliminates mail delay

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, July, 1989 by Kevin Sghia

Fax reader service offered by CMP

Manhasset, N.Y.--A fax inquiry sheet has replaced reader service cards inside every edition of Electronic World News, CMP Publications Inc.'s latest launch. The sheet, which enables readers to contact advertisers directly, is faster than reader service cards, which travel through the mail.

"We feel it takes too long to process requests," says Noah Osnos, the magazine's marketing manager. "An advertiser wants a quick response." Although the fax inquiries don't allow the magazine to track response, "we'll get pretty good feedback from our customers," says Osnos. "We tend to develop a good relationship with our advertisers. They'll tell us."

In fact, Osnos says advertisers have approached CMP about adding fax inquiry sheets to the company's other magazines. Electronic World News will also include a sheet that enables readers to qualify for a subscription by fax.

Facsimile communication, he adds, is especially important because Electronic World News' 32,000 circulation is primarily international. Readers can contact advertisers directly and get exact information instead of receiving literature on numerous products.

"In certain high-response industries, like electronics, it seems to me it's critical to act quickly," says Helen Berman, president of Helen Berman and Associates, a Los Angeles-based sales and marketing consulting firm. "It makes good sense. I would assume that more people are going to start."

Although many magazines use reader service cards to document response to advertisements, Osnos claims that "we have such a strict qualification procedure [for subscribers], it wouldn't benefit us to track it. We have confidence in our circulation."