Title profits from direct-mail 'trade show.'

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 1, 1992 by Lambeth Hochwald

Minilab Developments, an association magazine with 80 percent market share of the retail one-hour photo- developing market, has never allowed its list of 12,000 retail photo finishers to leave the magazine's Greensboro, North Carolina, offices.

But that hasn't stopped the title from making money on its subscriber names. In an interesting twist on list rental, this publication of the International Minilab Association has profited from a direct-mail strategy called "Tradeshow in a Mailbox."

Created by the husband-and-wife team of Roger McManus Jr., publisher, and Carolyn McManus, associate publisher, "Tradeshow in a Mailbox" gives advertisers the opportunity to reach readers in a bulk mailing. For 34 cents, a company can send a one-ounce piece of promotional material, postage included, in a multi-advertiser folder that's mailed directly to minilab owners and managers three times a year.

The gains can be sizable. For example, if 10 advertisers use a list of 12,000 names for "Tradeshow in a Mailbox," Minilab Developments can make about $33,000 profit (or 25 percent), once mailing and labor costs are factored in. In addition, it rakes in $195 per thousand names from companies that allow it to package and mail their materials for them, exclusive of other advertisers.

"It's taken us six years to compile a list that started with 3,500 minilabs," says Carolyn McManus of Minilab Development's proprietary stance. "We've acquired the lists of every major manufacturer, and we don't want to compromise that position."

How common is this approach? Not very, say most observers. For example, Tina Farah, advertising manager of School Food Service Journal, the publication of the American School Food Service Association, notes that, like Minilab Developments, the title reaches most of its market. But it still rents its list. "We have too small a staff to take someone's material and package it for them," she says.

Debra Stratton, president of her own contract publishing house and consultant to association magazines, says "Tradeshow in a Mailbox" is a novel approach to an old problem. "My clients are always looking for new ways to find a match between readers and advertisers," she says. "This might work well for those associations that don't have major national or international books competing against them."