Industry Trends Help Business Print Magazines

New print publishing trends and innovative marketing options offer good news for business periodical publishers seeking to boost subscribers and advertising for their print versions. The growth of digital readership has not doomed all printed periodicals to declining circulation and revenues, as some predicted. In fact, a recent What’s New in Publishing article cites multiple ways print magazines are adapting for growth. For example, publishers are focusing on niche audiences willing to pay more for a higher grade product and cutting down on frequency. Consider the Harvard Business Review: It grew its subscriber base 10% by reducing print frequency from 10 issues to six a year and using smart positioning, creative new digital benefits, and heavier investment in the quality of the six print issues to increase audience appeal. Printed information is also seen as more reliable by readers and advertisers, according to research, creating a "halo effect" for business publishers with a print edition. "The good news for printed business magazines is that their credibility has a halo effect on their websites, too, which gives them a competitive advantage over digital-only competitors. People may be buying fewer magazines, but they still associate them with quality and reliability," explains the publishing industry’s Dead Tree Edition blog. Plus, despite fears that younger business readers were turning mainly to digital sources and social media for information, publishers can take advantage of continued print readership popularity. For example, the Association of Magazine Media’s "Magazine Media Factbook 2018-2019" shows that, in the United States, "the top 25 print magazines reach more adults and teens than the top 25 prime time shows." Meanwhile, new print technologies and a revival of traditional marketing tools offer business periodicals options for boosting audience and advertiser appeal. A recent article from media agency Mediaspace Solutions cites some ideas that publishers can leverage. With the digital space crowded, noisy and less trusted by potential readers, direct mail campaigns have increased in effectiveness, the post notes. Plus, many publishers have returned to sending printed newsletters to subscribers. Print technologies (QR codes, augmented reality, etc.) are not only tools for better direct mail response but also a way to attract print advertisers by boosting print advertising effectiveness, the post points out. For example, augmented print stacks digital content over a print ad so that when the print ad is scanned by a smartphone, a new digital ad springs to life. Personalization is a must in today’s marketing, and business publishers can combine list segmentation with variable data printing to personalize direct mail campaigns for audience building. Plus, subscriber list segmentation can be offered to print advertisers to help them craft more targeted messages. See the full post on our website blog at https://www.acculist.com/industry-marketing-trends-help-grow-printed-business-publications/

Digital Data Fuel Publishers' Subscription Growth

For business periodicals to grow audience via direct marketing, good digital customer and prospect data is now essential. Consider a case study from The Economist, named one of the eight best business magazines of 2019 by The Balance reviewers. It isn't only content that makes The Economist stand out. It's a data-based audience-building strategy that has quadrupled subscription revenue over the last three years. Facing challenges in growing subscriber and advertising revenue, The Economist contracted with a customer data platform, Lytics, to shift from a print-focused to a digital subscription strategy based on customer data management, per a recent What's New in Publishing (WNIP) post. For example, the publisher used data analytics to create content hubs, or individual pages that display digital content based on a reader’s interest for particular news topics. Tactics also included displaying offers based on the reader’s subscription status and predictive engagement score, meaning their likelihood to subscribe, derived from other readers with behaviors like theirs. In addition to a 4X bump in The Economist subscriber revenue, the data-centric effort decreased cost per acquisition by 80%, tripled digital subscriptions, and increased time-on-site and engagement measures. The development of ongoing and adaptive customer profiles using machine learning allowed for individually tailored and timed advertising and engagement strategies, such as predicting when a reader is more receptive to certain kinds of advertising or content, or when subscribers were likely to stop visiting or subscribing. The Economist is not alone in embracing a digital subscription and data-management publishing model. The New York Times used similar strategies to boost digital subscriptions and revenues last year via AI-based data tools, analytics and segmentation. Data-driven strategies generated more than $709 million in digital revenue in 2018, with online subscription revenue up nearly 18% from 2017 and digital advertising up 8.6%. Out of its 4.3 million paid subscriptions for digital and print in 2018, more than 3.3 million people paid for its digital products, a 27% jump from 2017. For more, see our onsite blog post at https://www.acculist.com/digital-data-feed-publishers-subscription-growth/

Many Publishers Not Fully Mining Audience Data

Business periodical marketers come to AccuList USA for help with audience building via multi-channel campaigns, but as data experts, we'd like to remind them that their audience data offers other revenue streams worth mining. Most publishers know that targeted audience data is key to competing for ad dollars; for improved subscriber response via personalization; and for better targeted content marketing. A recent Adweek article by Jason Downie suggests several other ways to monetize audience data. Downie urges publishers to build “off-the-shelf” audience segments that can be sold directly to advertisers, for example. Consider how a seminar promoter could use a business magazine's data if the publication built an audience of people interested specifically in his topics or proven seminar buyers; the advertiser would be able to enjoy the benefits of tapping not just a business-engaged audience but a strategically targeted set of potential buyers more likely to convert. Audience segments can also offer insights that can be further monetized. For example, analytics could show that seminar attendees are four times more likely to share content online. That makes them online influencers, and since influencers are extremely valuable, the publisher can demand a higher CPM. Additionally, an audience segment can open the door to new advertisers and marketers, including non-endemic spending. A business publisher's analytics may show a subscriber segment visits golf sites as well as the magazine site, for example. The publisher can now woo clients looking to target "golfers." Another way publishers can take advantage of data is in the RFP process, according to the Adweek article, noting that the average publisher spends up to 1,600 hours per month, or 18% of revenue, responding to advertiser RFPs. Publishers can develop a customized response to an advertiser RFP, starting with first-party data to build out the RFP-requested audience and then enriching that database with third-party data appending. Digital campaigns can expand targeting by adding lookalikes. Author Downie advises running a portion of an ad campaign without audience or contextual targeting to identify additional audiences, interests, actions and behaviors of those who respond well to the campaign but were not included in the initial targeting. Still another option for publishers with high-quality audience data is to sell it as "second-party data," either directly to another company through a second-party data exchange or through a programmatic data exchange. And, of course, subscriber lists can be monetized as "third-party data," earning regular rental revenue on the open market and via data brokers. For more detail, see http://www.acculistusa.com/many-business-publications-fail-to-fully-mine-audience-data/

Publisher Missteps Undermine Online Subscription

Subscription marketing is a goal for most B2B and B2C publishers, but a recent Publishing Executive (PE) magazine article warns that publishers' common online errors are undermining circulation marketing investments. Access to premium content should be online but limited to subscribers, urges PE author Eric Shanfelt, founding partner of eMedia Strategist. After all, why subscribe if you can go to the website and see all content for free? Unfortunately, some publishers are so baffled by the technology of locking down content as subscriber-only that they don't even put their premium content online--losing a big selling point with digital traffic. Others are worried about reducing Google search traffic or ad impression dollars by limiting content access but not factoring in the cost of lost subscribers, argues Shanfelt. For success with subscriber-only premium content, the website must then prominently promote that premium content and its subscriber-only status via clear incentives and calls-to-action. A website or mobile subscription page should not be just an order form, Shanfelt advises. Remember that most people who visit a subscription page are just considering subscribing. They need to be sold. Visitors should clearly see the benefits of subscribing and what they get. Plus the page should generate a sense of urgency to sign up and use FOMO (fear of missing out) to push orders. Equally important, the subscription process should be quick and easy. Make the subscription link easy to see and navigation simple by putting an obvious menu item and widget on every website page, with a link directly to a single-page subscription form, not a multi-step process. And finally, make sure the subscription page is not only secure but loads quickly on desktop or mobile. If it doesn’t load in 2-3 seconds, up to 50% of potential subscribers could be lost, warns Shanfelt. In order to test and adjust marketing tactics, online subscription and confirmation pages should use Google Analytics to see how people get to subscription pages and how well they convert from different sources. Subscription/confirmation pages should also use tracking pixels from Facebook, Google, Bing and other digital sources, as well as from customer data platforms and e-mail systems. More important, circulation data needs to be integrated with the website subscription pages. If the website is synchronized with the circulation system, people can log into the site by authenticating against subscriber data to get access to premium content, for example. Integration also allows for conditional content blocks in follow-up e-mails to upsell non-subscriber leads and a sync of subscriber lists with programmatic ad networks. See the full post at http://www.acculistusa.com/publisher-mistakes-undermine-online-subscription-efforts/

2018 Offers New Publishing Growth Opportunities

Business and consumer publications face some pivotal audience- and revenue-building challenges, but there are also growth opportunities in 2018. We note three potential positives recently highlighted by Publishing Executive magazine. Audiences are increasing their demand for quality content, and advertisers are seeking publishers who can deliver that quality, so there is a lot of untapped revenue potential for publishers who commit to quality. This is especially true since the free-information era is ending as readers become wary of free but low-value content and increasingly willing to pay for reliable quality. For digital publishers, the downside of a shift to paid content can be a shrinkage of circulation, forcing them to balance potential subscription revenue against lower ad page-views. The Publishing Executive article offers mitigating tactics: leaky paywalls; metered paywalls; charging only for premium content; allowing only paid subscribers to comment or participate in an online community; early access to certain articles for paid subscribers, etc. Meanwhile, with daily access to vast amounts of information in print, online, media and social, mass-market-oriented print and digital publications have been struggling, and niche publishers proliferating. Readers want to focus on what’s relevant to their specific interests, and many advertisers want to reach the right pool of people more than just the largest pool of people. The trick for publications is to embrace niche demand without sacrificing too much circulation. The Publishing Executive article offers some suggestions. Digital publications can create a product-within-a-product on the website, for example, with content targeted to a subset of the normal audience and attractive to new sponsors who want to reach that specific audience. For print publications, there are niche-targeted inserts, bonus sections, customized covers, polybagged special reports, or ad packages that combine a full-page magazine ad with a niche-targeted cover wrap or insert. Finally, brand advertisers have become concerned about aligning with publishers who tolerate fake news, violence, extremism, or other offensive content. This means that respected publishers can court advertising revenue (and circulation) in 2018 by stressing brand quality and safety in their promotions. On that point, Publishing Executive quotes from an Advertising Age piece in which Shelagh Daly Miller of AARP declared: "Only when brands partner with reputable publishers can they have full confidence in where their ads are being placed. That’s a message that should be all over our industry’s media kits. And tattooed onto the foreheads of our ad reps." For more on publishing opportunity trends, see http://www.acculistusa.com/2018-offers-new-growth-opportunities-for-publishing-marketers/

Study: Consumer E-mail Behavior Varies by Industry

To optimize consumer e-mail response, marketers must adjust strategy for consumer behavior that differs by market vertical and device use. So they'll find valuable guidance in Movable Ink’s "US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q1 2017" report on how opens, conversions, engagement and even order values are affected by market vertical and device preferences. For all industries studied—retail, travel and hospitality, financial services, and media/publishing and entertainment—the report found most e-mails are opened on a smartphone as opposed to a tablet or desktop. Smartphone e-mail opens have especially jumped for financial services, up 7% from the fourth quarter of 2016 to reach 70% of opens in the first quarter of this year. However, retail is not far behind, with 61% smartphone opens for apparel and 57% for non-apparel e-mails. While smartphones still led opens, the more content-heavy media, publishing and entertainment vertical also has a good portion of desktop e-mail opens at 32%, followed by travel and hospitality with 29% desktop opens. Tablet opens are also stronger for media and publishing at 18%, higher than any other industry.Mobile optimization is clearly key for open rates, but retailers should not neglect desktop design because that's where the orders are racked up. Non-apparel retailer e-mails attribute 73% of conversions to desktop use, for example, with 51% of conversions on desktop for apparel retailing. Desktops also deliver the highest average order value for retailers: $171.04 for apparel and $138.57 for non-apparel sales. When it comes to e-mail reading time, the study generally found that iPhones are able to capture more attention than Android mobile phones, Android tablets, desktop computers, or iPads. The finance industry had the longest read lengths on iPhones, with 68% of subscribers spending 15 or more seconds reading their e-mail thanks to the Apple devices. Media, publishing and entertainment e-mails also garnered high iPhone read time, with 61% reading e-mail for 15 seconds or more. For more, see http://www.acculistusa.com/study-how-consumer-e-mail-behavior-varies-by-market-vertical/

Price, Premium, Copy Tweaks Lift Acquisition Mailer

While many direct mailers focus on the secret to millennial response, it's good to keep a close eye on mail tactics that work well with older and general audiences, too. A case in point is a recent Target Marketing magazine case study sharing the Mayo Clinic Health Letter's expertise in testing toward maximum acquisition response for its control. With its huge 2 million to 5 million mail pieces per quarter, Mayo has a lot of room for testing! Targeting an older audience (age 70 and up), the Mayo Clinic mailer has long used an oversized kraft outer envelope with a simple teaser that appeals to the older market preference for courtesy: "Please favor us with a reply within 10 days." Successfully tested changes include shifting the envelope size from 11"x 14" to a 10" x 14" to save money, but inside-package tweaks have delivered the response boosts. For example, the letter now leads with pricing, a "tough times" stress on the per issue $1.97 over an annual savings. But one of the most significant response-getters has been the addition of a premium in the form of existing internal special reports--on weight loss or arthritis, for example--offered for free. The control has also increased its lift by moving to an eight-page letter, up from the original four-page pitch. The results are proof that longer copy can outdo short copy when it comes to self-help offers and older markets. For one, the long-form letter allows marketers to pack in more benefits. Second, it allows for a larger type size. For example, the Mayo letter has shifted to a 14-point type as a boon to aging eyesight and a way to distinguish its approach as more personal and less corporate. Meanwhile, the mailer's reply card page has three-in-one power: reply form, premium stuffer and a BRE, in yellow to stand out in the package. For more, see http://www.acculistusa.com/how-acquisition-mailing-won-with-price-premium-benefits-copy/

In Direct Mail, What's Old Is New (& Effective) Again

Keeping up with the latest direct mail options combining print and digital technologies doesn't mean ignoring the tried-and-true, pre-digital tactics that still deliver mail response! Thank Paul Bobnak, director of Who's Mailing What!, for sifting through mail volumes to spot some successful new takes on old tricks for attention-getting envelopes. In a recent Target Marketing magazine article, he noted the reappearance of four "old-school" tactics. One is an envelope highlighting Yes-No-Maybe stickers, once a favorite of subscription drives; Bobnak cites a recent mail piece from UPMC, a healthcare system, with the Yes-No stickers visible in an outer envelope window. Posting an outer envelope quiz is another proven way to intrigue prospects into opening--a ploy often used for health care and financial services offers. Bobnak shows how a few qualifying envelope questions work well today for the Harvard Health Letter. The interoffice-routing-style envelope is an old trick for catching the attention of office workers and has been a go-to for B2B. Despite e-mail's workplace dominance, interoffice paper still exists, and Bobnak notes the recent engaging nonprofit marketing use of an interoffice envelope by Sacred Heart Southern Missions, a social ministry. Then there's the photo lab envelope, seemingly obsolete in this digital photo age. But high-quality printed photos still come in envelopes, Bobnak reminds, and that syncs with the message of Dissolve, a stock footage agency, which recently prospected with a photo lab envelope containing quality photos from its collections. Once recipients open the envelope, the old-school marketing basics of the letter copy offer still matter, too. Thus, in another recent Target Marketing magazine article, Summer Gould highlighted seven items required for a great direct mail letter: a first sentence that hooks the reader; an offer that is attractive; a story line that pulls important emotional triggers; flattery that convinces the reader he or she is special and appreciated, which today requires personalization; questions that qualify; a problem solved by your product or service; and benefits that matter to the prospect or customer. For more detail and links to real-life examples, see http://www.acculistusa.com/for-direct-mail-whats-old-can-be-new-effective-again/

Subscription Marketing Basics Still Win Audiences

Despite modern publishing's multi-platform environment (print, web, mobile), many long-time subscription marketing rules retain their relevance. A recent post from Bill Dugan, for niche magazine consulting firm Mequoda, stressed just that point by reminding audience development pros of the fundamentals for price, offer and creative. As a list brokerage with many paid or controlled circulation clients, AccuList USA would, of course, add another important component: quality data. As Dugan stresses, the art and science of pricing still counts. In pricing, whether for print, online, tablet or combination packages, subscription marketers actually have an edge over many other products by being able to sell the same product at different prices each time it’s purchased, from a new subscriber to each subsequent renewal. Pricing strategies can include 1) simply the same price at every stage of buying or renewing; 2) giving the more price-sensitive new subscriber an introductory discount and then selling renewals at full price; 3) maximizing response and profitability with a step-up program from a low introductory price through gradual renewal increases to maximum; and 4) rewarding subscribers with a lower monthly price for selecting a longer (annual) term. Next, marketers can build a range of offers. Based on testing, Dugan reports that the best response is earned by a "soft offer," meaning a trial free issue or more, plus a premium and a bill-me-later for a full subscription. The lowest response offer is the old-fashioned hard offer, requesting up-front credit card payment with no trial or premium,per his testing. And finally, direct marketing success requires wrapping the offer in effective creative. A key to creative response today, whether direct mail or e-mail, is personalization that focuses on the target customers’ needs. Of course, effective personalization requires targeted, quality data! So while Dugan didn't talk about the paramount importance of data, we remind marketers of the continuing relevance of either the 40-40-20 rule (40% of response success from audience/list, 40% from offer and 20% for creative) or the 60-30-10 formula (60% from targeted audience/list). Bottom line, good audience data is key. For more on our proprietary research on market-tested data and selection parameters most likely to boost response, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/subscription-marketing-basics-still-create-winning-formulas/

Data & Content Key to Publishers' Audience Building

In the age of big data and exploding digital content, targeted data quality and database management are more essential than ever to profitable circulation marketing and audience development for publishers and media owners. A recent Marketo blog post backs up that assertion with their advice. Demographics and firmographics are a key starting point, but now media owners also can mine transactional data, behavioral data, and psychographics/interests across channels, the post notes. Smart use of first-, second- and third-party data allows for tailored content, offers and channel targeting. As the Marketo article explains, "For example, you may know that a reader is a part of a cohort that is female, between 18-35 years old, with a household income between $64-96K....But what could you do–in terms of engagement–if you learn through her content consumption patterns that she’s interested in football, responds to sponsored content from travel brands, and mostly responds to content that’s shared on Facebook?" Yet more data from multiple sources–web, print, mail, e-mail, social media–also presents challenges, and Marketo cites Folio's recent survey of publishing leaders, which found 71% citing data management as a top priority for creating and monetizing media products. The solution is a single hub for audience data and automated cross-channel processing in real-time, the post advises, in order to deliver the right message at the right time to the right target. Finally, in publication/media marketing even more than other brand marketing, content counts. Faced with ever-growing digital content noise, media owners must work even harder to deliver content that interests and engages the target audience. For more, including advice on content marketing wins and misses, see to our complete onsite post at http://www.acculistusa.com/data-content-are-keys-to-profitable-audience-building/

Innovative Media Tactics Help Grow 2017 Circulation

Circulation pros and media owners looking for new strategies to acquire subscribers, boost event attendance and up revenues will find some great lessons in Editor & Publisher's annual feature "10 Newspapers That Do It Right."  It spotlights ideas for 2017 circulation, revenue and engagement growth with applications beyond the newspaper world. For example, the Albany Times Union is growing its print subscription base by offering more frequency flexibility with a Thursday through Sunday and/or Sunday-only print delivery as primary options. "As consumers continue to downsize their subscriptions to fit into a busier and more digital audience, this change in tactics presented the consumer with flexibility," Brad Hunt, circulation sales and marketing manager, explained to E&P. At the same time, the paper reduced subscription churn by using data analysis of starts and stops to develop more efficient retention and engagement touch points, increasing starts by 7% and cutting stops by 18%. In another example, San Antonio's Express-News woos subscribers and boosts ad revenue via multimedia publication of unique local content. For example, in October 2015, the paper launched a 48-page, all-color tabloid magazine, Spurs Nation, about its local NBA team, the Spurs. Full of original and exclusive reporting on the team (80,000 subscribers currently), the tabloid is inserted in the Sunday paper and sold on newsstands. Four months after the magazine launched, a half-hour "Spurs Nation" television show debuted on the local NBC affiliate. Plus, on game days, the paper began publishing a double-truck with a scouting report and feature story. Content was accessible on the paper’s premium subscriber website and on a niche site. So, in a single buy, advertisers can get magazine, newspaper, TV show and website ads! Plus, the paper added book publishing this past holiday season, with a book about major moments in San Antonio basketball. Finally, publishers hoping to woo millennials to their print, digital and mobile platforms may want to study Singapore's Straits Times decision to create Singapore’s first coffee festival. "We wanted to target a millennial crowd in particular, and much of the publicity was specifically created for maximum impact on social media," Managing Editor Fiona Chan told Editor & Publisher. Since the goal was to get millennials engaged with the publication, the paper’s designated Reading Room at the festival gave guests the chance to interact with reporters, columnists and editors through a series of hour-long Q&A sessions. "Readers are increasingly looking for more than just commoditized news that they can get for free anywhere. What they want is to engage with journalists and newsmakers, to ask specific questions about the issues that interest them and to obtain detailed answers," Chan advised. For more detail, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/innovative-media-tactics-offer-ideas-for-growing-2017-circulation/

2017 Magazines: Digital Embrace, Platform Tensions

The pursuit of circulation and ad revenue will push magazine publishers to embrace a number of digital publishing trends in 2017, per predictions in a Publishing Executive magazine article by Ron Matejko, president of digital publisher MVP Media. For one, watch for subscription drives to leverage digital outreach.While insert cards and direct mail remain sturdy tools for circulation marketing, Matejko foresees increased use of digital tools in audience development, and he cites the example of Dallas-based D Magazine, which is leveraging its combined database with outreach via automated and personalized e-mail campaigns and targeted social media advertising to audiences that look like their current print subscriber base. The result has been more new and renewed subscriptions for the print product, in fact almost a 100% increase in subscriptions generated monthly through digital efforts. Mobile apps are another area that will see increased interest, predicts Matejko. Consider the success story of Cities West Publishing in Arizona, which expanded its app offerings last year with interactive versions of two monthly print publications, as well as apps to supplement multimedia campaigns for two special issues. The benefits: branding, extended shelf life beyond the newsstand, and revenue via multi-platform value-added for print ad partners. Plus, Matejko cites other tech innovations that could transform digital publishing, particularly when teamed with mobile. For more on his digital publishing trend predictions, see http://www.acculistusa.com/2017-magazine-trends-digital-embrace-platform-tensions/

Magazine Audiences Grow, Increase Mobile Viewing

The good news for publishers is that total audience—across print, Web, mobile and video—grew robustly in 2016, up 6.4% over the prior year, according to the 2016 Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report from the Association of Magazine Media (MPA). But there is a challenge for publications within the data: the continued shift to a mobile audience. Although print and digital editions continued to garner the largest audience for magazine media last year, the mobile platform had the most rapid growth rate, per the MPA's trend analysis. Nearly 80% of the brands reporting showed mobile growth, with 79% of those brands up by either double- or triple-digit percentages. More than a quarter of the brands in the report grew their mobile unique visitors by one million or more each. That mobile growth came at the expense of Web (desktop/laptop) users. In fact, the Web audience represented the only magazine media platform to decline as consumers spent more time on portable devices than computers. Meanwhile, though video remained the smallest audience platform in 2016, it also recorded strong growth, per MPA, up by double-digit percentage rates. For more, see our post at  http://www.acculistusa.com/growing-magazine-audiences-continue-shift-toward-mobile/

Mail Still Stars in Multichannel Subscription Drives

As multichannel publishing evolves, traditional direct mail, long a staple of subscription acquisition campaigns, has evolved as well. So a recent Target Marketing magazine article by Paul Bobnak, director of Who's Mailing What!, caught our eye. The article provided an interesting example of how an established print publication brand successfully used targeted direct mail to promote multiplatform content and expand reach to a digital-first audience. Bobnak shares how The Economist, one of the world’s most respected magazines and a "big user of direct mail," created a new mail piece to promote its brand to an academic target market of college professors--and secondarily their students. The piece used a recent issue's eye-catching magazine cover as the non-address side of the outer portion of a brochure mailer, taking advantage of the visual, tactile and guaranteed-mailbox-delivery of direct mail. There were additional cover examples inside--up to 25 on its first page alone--to reinforce the value of an invitation to academics, at a "special academic rate," to join "one million leaders" in keeping abreast of significant political, business, finance, scientific and technical news and trends. Plus, the professors were encouraged to pass along the informational benefits of the magazine to their students, who could subscribe at a special individual rate or via a group subscription provided by the teacher. Recognizing that many academics, especially younger students, are digital-first today, a full page of the brochure highlighted a digital package. That package included options such as a weekly digital or audio edition sent to tablet or smartphone, and a "Daily Espresso" of top stories shot to the subscriber's device. So while the promotion was delivered via printed direct mail, the stress was on desirable content delivery--regardless of platform. For a link to the actual example, go to http://www.acculistusa.com/direct-mail-still-stars-in-multichannel-subscription-campaigns/

E-mail Blasts Daily, But Tuesday Is Most Favored

What's the best day to send e-mail to get a response? Well, if you pick Tuesday, you are joining the e-mail marketing crowd. Using the exclusive e-mail campaign database from Who’s Mailing What (WMW!) for 2013 and 2014, Target Marketing magazine recently assessed e-mail volume by day of the week. The data ranks Tuesday as the most popular day for sending e-mails, with Thursday a close second, for both 2014 and 2013. A review of e-mails received by WMW! also shows that both days dipped slightly in 2014 — Tuesday from 17.8% of weekly e-mails in 2013 to 17.4%, and Thursday from 17.6% in 2013 to 17.1% in 2014 — but both days continued to hold the top overall spots. Those dips may have been due to more weekend sends for the 2014 elections, however. Meanwhile, the third most popular day was Wednesday, which took up 16.7% of weekly e-mails in 2014, up from 16.5% in 2013. Which industry categories are filling up digital mailboxes? Retailers send the most e-mails daily, followed by publishers (magazines and newsletters) and then nonprofits/fundraisers for politics and social action (causes), per WMW! data. Read the article at http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/day-week-send-email/

E-mail Inbox Flooded? It Must Be Thursday

If your e-mail inbox is especially crowded, it's probably Thursday. Thursday is the most popular day for sending e-mails, with Tuesday a close second, according to the Who's Mailing What! review of e-mails sent between June 2013 and May 2014 by more than 2,500 companies and organizations. Almost 84% of all e-mails were received on a weekday, led by Thursday and Tuesday, as retailers and publishers blasted inboxes all week long, with many sending multiple e-mails daily for their various brands or titles. The top e-mail categories for Thursday alone were Catalogs-Consumer, Retail Traffic Builders, Magazines-Special Interest, Magazines-Business/Financial, Fundraising-Social Action (Causes), Newsletters-General, Seminars/Conferences, Catalogs-Food & Kitchenware, Catalogs-Children/Teen and Fundraising-Politics. For details, see http://www.directmarketingiq.com/article/thursday-tuesday-still-top-days-sending-email/1

Hobby Magazines Thrive Thanks to Loyal Subscribers

"Hobby" magazines have become the "darlings of the struggling magazine industry," The New York Times recently reported. The lucky niche publishers can thank especially loyal subscribers for immunity from the circulation erosion that has afflicted general-interest publications. An example is the toy train fanatic who spends about $120 a year on subscriptions to Model Railroader, Classic Trains and Classic Toy Trains and declares to The Times, "I would probably give up my train club before I would give up my train magazines." Some high-end niche publications even boast circulation growth. For example, Wine Spectator's circulation has grown by 11% in the last 10 years. And while Cycle World and Hot Bike magazines have seen slight declines in circulation, both have been able to successfully raise subscription rates to offset the drop and have such strong renewal rates that they have expanded editorial staff. Food magazines are among those benefiting from subscriber loyalty--and the fact that advertisers value that loyalty: Bon Appetit's ad dollars were up by 27% in the third quarter of 2013 from the same period a year earlier and Saveur's ad take was up about 11%, compared with the publishing industry growth rate of just 4%. And hobby magazines are now making a profitable transition to the digital world. When the big brands began to offer free Internet content, the niche players held back. Now they are introducing paid subscriber-only websites and digital apps. Wine Spectator subscribers pay both $2.99 a month for an app and $49.95 annually paid website, which has attracted 10,000 sign-ups since its debut eight months ago. See the whole story at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/business/media/loyal-subscribers-keep-hobby-magazines-afloat.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

ATTN Mailers: USPS Mulls 2014 Postage With FSS Pricing

U.S. Postal Service support of its Flats Sequencing System (FSS) may lead to an overhaul of postal rates early next year to include “an FSS pricing structure” for the Standard and Periodicals classes (and perhaps First Class mail), according to an online Dead Tree Edition post. The story cites indications from postal officials that the plan will include significant incentives for mailers to create FSS-optimized bundles for ZIP codes served by the giant machines, while continuing to make traditional carrier-route and five-digit bundles for non-FSS areas. No details were released, but such a change would certainly impact catalogs, direct mail and printers, prompting Target Marketing magazine to pick up the story at http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/aggregatedcontent/fss-postage-pricing-will-affect-catalogs-magazines-printers 

Print Reading Audiences Post Growth in 2013

If you believe the Digital Age dooms print marketing, check out the latest print audience figures for this year. Print reading audiences are posting growth, according to spring 2013 data released by measurement firm GfK MRI. Of the 181 magazine titles surveyed, about 42%, or 76 titles, saw print audience size increase by 5% or more from spring 2012 to spring 2013. About 35 publications saw audiences grow from 5% to 10%. Another 41 magazines saw gains of 10% or more, with 11 of the 41 titles growing readership by more than 20% year-over-year. The big winner was Diabetes Forecast, with a whopping increase of 48.73%. Of course, some titles lost readership. About 15 publications reported losses between 5% and 10%, with 12 losing 10% or more. The biggest loser was Meredith’s FamilyFun magazine, which reported a drop of 23.28%. When the digital audience (excluding Web traffic) is added to print readership, even more publishers have reason to celebrate growth. With combined digital and print audience, 39 publications saw audience gains between 5% and 10%, and 42 magazine titles saw gains of 10% or more when comparing the spring 2012 to 2013. For more, see the Folio report at http://www.foliomag.com/2013/magazine-audience-sizes-flat-growing-gfk-mri-numbers#.UgpLy9KyByI