T

hese are difficult times. As I write this, the government has virtually taken over Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, put boodles of cash into AIG, anted up $700 Billion+ to help the banks and credit industry… yet, the stock market has fallen off a cliff… sales are slow…people are afraid. How do you and your publication survive and prosper?

 

I want to share some survival strategies that you and your publication can use and I’ll also tell you about some First Edition survivor features you’ll want to hear about too. So here are my Nine Publishing Survival Strategies:

 

First, let’s face it - cash is king. A company like Microsoft has $23 billion in cash – but most of the rest of us don’t. Credit is tight, so you have to think about creative ways of raising cash for you business. And, here is one sure way of raising cash with very little cost. If you have a paid publication with a fairly loyal following then it’s a snap. And, I will also comment on how B2B controlled publications can use this strategy. And that strategy is Advance Renewals. I first leaned about Advance Renewals in the first year of publishing my own consumer magazine. My startup was without any magazine publishing experience and without much capital. So I had to be clever just to meet payroll. What I discovered was simply this –

 

Think about it- it’s an interest free loan basically. And if you defer income (and you sure should), you won’t have to pay any additional early taxes- only when earned. And, from your loyal subscriber’s viewpoint she was going to renew again anyway –now she just gets it cheaper or a bonus premium, or both, just for renewing in advance. It’s a Win-Win. 

 

Now of course you have to figure the time value of money – and that’s a higher level than I want to get into here – (I had several college buddies fail this class). But loosely speaking you must compare the cost of Advance Renewals against the cost of borrowing. But since credit is so tight, you probably don’t have a cheap, easy way to borrow anyway, in which case the advance renewal strategy is the best way to go.

 

If you’re a controlled, audited publication, then you should know about “Short Form Qualifications”. BPA allows you to qualify your subscriber without demographics (short form) as long as you do get demographics every three years. But, you can use the “short form” date for reporting purposes and keep more subs in your “Within 1 Year” qualifications for reporting. This is another effective use for advance renewals - “short form” renew them every year, instead of only qualifying every three years).

 

Here’s how it works for paid publications. 

 

I would suggest selecting subscribers with an expire date about 6 months or more in the future. But you should also test recent expire status subscriptions who didn’t respond to your renewal series – one more renewal effort (using your advance renewal masquerading as a reinstatement offer) and coupled with a bonus or discount, just might do the trick. However, what you don’t want to do is compete against your self – In other words, you do not want your advance renewal going to subscribers already receiving your normal renewal series.

 

The key to a successful advance renewal success is your offer. As I said, that’s usually a discount, a premium, or some combination. I highly advise a premium, which is usually cheaper and doesn’t cost you the subscription discount. If you create a product that subscribers just can’t resist, then it’s probably the best way to go. You probably have existing articles or data that you could compile in a different, useful way. Here are some premium ideas.

                       

1.      Resource Directory

 

This kind of premium could be invaluable to your subscribers and could become an opportunity for additional advertising income too. And, it allows your publication to develop a reputation for being an “Industry Insider” and a source that subscribers look for when buying products and services. Examples would include a guide to manufacturers or wholesalers or specialists in your industry.

 

2.      Future Predictions/Trends for your Industry.

 

This report could be completed by staff or through interviews with top leading industry experts. Predictions and Trend reports are always a hot, “have-to-have” material that your subscribers will love. And again, you become the industry expert- the publication is thought to be “in the know”. Examples would be Top 12 Strategies for Investing in the new Green Markets or Lifestyle trends that affect Snowmobile Manufacturing. Forecasts could predict future trends such as 7 Trends in Internet Marketing.

 

 

Guides and manuals have great appeal to readers, and, with your           knowledge of your industry, you probably have many resources to call upon. They should, however, be relevant to your magazine content. A financial magazine might create How to Move your 401K in 5 Easy Steps. 

 

 

These are compilations of past articles with maybe a smidgeon of new articles, especially selected to offer a theme interesting to your readers. For example, a songwriting magazine may put together the Best Ways of Making a Song Demo. A chiropractor magazine might create 9 Doctors Reveal How They Doubled Their Practice or, Seven Complaints your Patients Never Tell You About. You get the idea.
 

 

 

Although similar to several above, the concept here is to use you knowledge of who’s important in your industry to interview. A fast, simple phone call interview might suffice.   A golf magazine might have 12 Best Tips for Driving straight and Long. A department of defense newsletter might offer the Insider’s Tricks and Tips on Getting Your Share of DOD’s Huge Budget. Well… you get the idea.
 

 

Reviewing products that sell to your audience has always been a winner. And this special report could eventually turn into a Product Directory with advertising sponsorship. An example from a camera magazine could be a Review of This Fall’s Best New Cameras.

 

 

Everybody likes to see what people like themselves are making. And business owners need to know competitive salary levels for hiring new employees. So this special report is always a winner.

         _____________

 

Now, next to your offer, the success of your advance renewal depends on the intangible readers’ love of your publication.   So the place to look for a clue to see if advance renewals could work for you is your renewal rates. The higher your renewal rates, the better your advance renewal offers will respond. However you do need to differentiate between first time, second time and multi-time renewal rates since they renew at different rates (by the way, First Edition’s reports provide that kind of reporting).

 

Special Tip: To get even more bang for the buck, I recommend you save money in printing the report by sending your renewing subscribers to your website to download the bonus report. And, require their name and email address. That way you 1) save the printing and postage, and 2) you grab their email address for future promotions. Oh, do I have to say it? Provide an opt-in for email promotions.

 

“What!” you ask, “Are you crazy? Increase my prices in an economy like this?” And the answer is a firm YES! I’m betting that your publication is unique and highly valued by your subscribers. You’ll be surprised how elastic subscription price can really be- astounding at how much you can raise prices without losing customers.   I find many magazines have had the same prices for many, many years – and just never getting around to raising them or simply are afraid to raise them. But let’s look at the math:

 

25,000 subscribers @ $7 subscription price increase per year = $175,000! 

 

Could your company use an extra $62,500? I bet it could. And, if you’re not sure, then split test the price increase in new order promotions.

 

Dollars from a price increase are dollars in your pocket that you don’t need to borrow - dollars you don’t have to pay interest on. Also, I have a really good, sneaky, strategic reason for suggesting a price raise.   That’s because now, instead of offering your advance renewals a dollars off discount, you can instead offer a savings by their renewing at your old price before you raise prices! It does double duty – giving anyone whose price sensitive the ability to renew now at the current price savings as well as get a bonus report, directory, or other premium. And it serves to notify your subscribers of the upcoming price increase so that it immunizes you against future sticker shock. Now they will expect it and not be surprised, and remember they had a chance to renew at the old price.

 

 

Survival Strategy # 3 – Use Email more effectively and more often.

 

Email is a cheap way to go. It costs you nothing but a little time, and it can be quite effective.   Now I don’t suggest you stop normal snail-mail mailings since I strongly believe you should use more than one method or channel for reaching your subscribers.   As you probably know, First Edition has a built-in Email Module that integrates with your renewal series so that you can send some by mail and some by email. Or, send all efforts both ways.   What you may not know is First Edition can also email to selective subscribers too. For example, you may want to select “active” status subscribers who expire 6 months or later for an advance renewal mailing. Or, select Electronic Edition Subscribers for mailing a link to your PDF issue. That’s a snap with First Edition.

 

 

Traditional publishers have had a hard time adjusting to the web. It’s very costly to have custom software written and costly to input the web orders, and costly, if not impossible, to sync to your in-house database with the web. Ah…. but in a month or so, we’ll be announcing Lynx Ecommerce. Our package will now give clients a fully synced, out of the box web site (except for content and style of course). You’ll be able to sell subscriptions as well as any other kinds of product with our included shopping cart.   Products may also include downloadable products and recurring subscriptions as well as everyday products like books and T-shirts. You’ll be able to offer subscriber-only access areas and have various levels if you wish (Silver, Gold, etc.). You’ll be able to send a link to your subscriber with the First Edition Email with a link to click to renew their subscription. And orders flow, almost automatically, back into your in-house system.   It’s a dream come true for many publishers (and it’s very affordable). Give me a call if you have an interest in this.

 

 

Approximately 17 percent of the nation’s population moves each year. So, if you have 25,000 subscribers, than means 4,250 of your subscribers will move in the next year. And, assuming nobody sent you a change of address (but surely some would) that would be 8,500 issues you paid printed and postage for – money out of your pocket you could have saved by simply running them through NCOA. How much do you pay per issue to print? How much to mail (don’t forget mailhouse charges)? And don’t forget, those are readers also not getting their renewal notice either. So there’s also missing opportunity for renewal profits. The cost really adds up fast. And by using the electronic version of ACS you pay only 21¢ versus 75¢ hardcopy. That’s another big savings.

 

With First Edition’s NCOA/ACS Module, you can easily join the USPS’s ACS (Address Correction Service) and have the post office send you electronic files of undeliverable issues and /or changes of address. First Edition will import them right in with a few clicks. And you can also send your First Edition list to a NCOA (National Change of Address) vendor who can return the list with nixies (undeliverable) and changes of address. Again First Edition will import them in easily. And this way, you get the address changes faster, before you mail, without wasting both printing and postage cost.

 

One more quick postage savings tip. If you do mailings with the standard 9x12 envelopes, you now pay a premium to the post office. Switch instead to a 6 x 9 envelope, simply by folding your material in half. A 1,000 piece two ounce mailing of a 9x12 package cost $1,000 postage compared to a 6x9 package mailing cost of $590 - a savings of $410!!

 

 

 

 

If you have First Edition’s AutoCharge module, you could offer on every renewal form an option to Opt-in for automatic renewal and automatic charging. That means your subscriber doesn’t have to miss a single issue just because they forgot to mail back a renewal…or they were out of town… or 100 other reasons for not responding to your renewal series. You can sell that as a big benefit for your subscriber. It also means that you don’t have to print and mail a renewal. It means you’ll get a better renewal response rate. In fact we had one client that reported their renewal rate more than doubled using this strategy. With this feature, you can easily calculate renewal income for any given month. First Edition handles it all for you. Renews the subscriber based on your policy, and then either bills or charges their charge card. And then, First Edition will also batch upload the credit charges to your bank! Pretty slick.

And do I have to say it? Put an Auto Renew opt-in on your advance renewal bonus PDF download too! (see Survival Strategy #1).

 

New orders cost more than renewal orders. The rule is that you continue trying to renew them until the renewal cost surpasses the cost of acquiring new orders. Old customers are your best prospects. They’ve bought from you before – they know you and your publication. And they probably liked receiving your publication. The reason they didn’t renew could be a reason that they no longer exist. Perhaps they were out of town… sick…starting school…moving…changing job… getting married…getting divorced… your get the idea. Any number of innocent reasons exist for them not renewing even though they loved or profited from you publication.

Most publishers just mail too little to their ex-readers. How much should you mail? That depends – but you can easily find out by testing. And when you test, First Edition will break down your renewal response not only by effort and renewal type (1^st time conversions, 2^nd time renewals, and 3 or more renewals), but also by Offer/Source, Subscriber Type, Edition, Year, Term, Expire date and more with Version 7’s reports. You will know down to a penny what your costs are.

 

9A.Newsletter. I recommend you add an opt-in on your web page for a monthly newsletter. Establishing a more personal relationship with your readers goes a long way to encourage reader loyalty. 9B Join Ventures. A diet magazine, for example, could offer trial memberships to Weight Watchers as part of a renewal strategy. 9C Send-A-Friend. Have your readers send you references (for a free bonus maybe). Put a “Send-A-Friend” offer/optin in the form of an email on your website to allow your subscribers to recommend that a friend(s) view the page or website. 9D Memberships. Depending on your publication, maybe you can offer a higher level of service for additional prices. For example, Investors Business Daily offers a web version of their paper with research capability for a monthly fee. (Our new web solution will allow you to offer and manage memberships easily). 9E social bookmarks and Share. Add bookmarks for the social boomarks like Digg, MySpace, and Twitter. (Our new web solution offers up to 39 social bookmarks that you can add to your pages- we’ll do it for you).

 

There you have it. Nine + publishing strategies to help you in this economy. And always remember this saying by the wise philosopher Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there”.

Good Publishing.