Using Your Page Footer to Increase Magazine Circulation

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Using Your Page Footer to Increase Magazine Circulation

Posted in Website Design Tips	November 9, 2005

Permalink: http://daily.mequoda.com/i//website_design_tips/magazine_circulation_marketing_71-1.html

Learn how one special-interest consumer publisher increased his magazine circulation with a simple change to the page footer on every page of his print magazine.

Executive Summary

Your page footer can be a new source of high quality magazine circulation
Like most magazine circulation marketing programs, the details of how you execute the creative can make a big difference to your results
Discuss other magazine circulation marketing programs that leverage your print magazine to drive new subscription orders

Sometimes it's the simple circulation marketing ideas that amaze me the most.

The publisher of a 200,000 circulation gardening magazine launched a simple circulation marketing website to sell subscriptions online about two years ago. As soon as the site was live, he decided to change the footer on every other page of his magazine to display the website URL instead of the name of the magazine. The bottom of the left hand page would continue to include Plants Alive in the footer, while the right hand page would now list the URL: www.PlantsAliveMagazine.com.

Within six months, he was generating about 200 orders per month at $19.97 for the bi-monthly magazine. He noted no discernable drop in his insert card order response rate, leading him to believe that the bulk of the online orders were plus business to his magazine circulation efforts.

Opportunity: Given his initial online circulation marketing success, he decided to put the URL in the footer of every page of the magazine on the bottom of both right and left hand pages. He also decided to bold the URL and bump up the type size in an attempt to further increase website traffic and magazine circulation.

Results: Within 60 days, online orders rose to more than 800 net orders per month and are still trending up every month. He's now thinking about other ways to use his print magazine to boost magazine circulation and is preparing to test several online circulation marketing programs like pay-per-click (PPC), press releases, search engine optimization (SEO) and link building.

Suggested Discussion Questions

Can you think of other ways to use the pages of his magazine to boost his magazine's circulation?
Would this approach work as well for other non-magazine information products?
Do you think the first year conversion rates for orders that arrive through the homepage of his website will be better or worse that his direct mail orders?

Mequoda Library Members Only: For in-depth reporting on Internet Marketing visit the Internet Marketing for Publishers and Authors TOC Page, or check out these related reports:

Your Traffic Building Checklist, by Alexandria K. Brown
Mequoda Method Habit #6: Using Content to Drive Traffic, by Don Nicholas and Jane Zarem
PCWorld.com Internet Marketing Case Study, by Jane Zarem
Consumer Magazine Website Design, by Roxanne O'Connell
Ten Things You Can Do to Increase Visitor Response at Your Website, by John Alexander

Magazine Circulation Resources

Note: The details of the case have been modified to protect the identity of the publisher and program. If you've got a case study you'd like to share, send me an email. Your privacy is my top concern. - Don Nicholas

COMMENTS

Is it possible to estimate the number of new customers versus renewals resulting from this program? If the footer is increasing subscriptions from new customers, then it seems possible that either the magazine or copies of articles from it circulate beyond the subscriber base. In other situations, that might be a problem, but the footer changes all that additional circulation into free advertising.

If the footer is increasing renewals significantly, then it's a matter of putting an advertisement in front of the same person thousands of times until it finally sinks in. Renewing customers are already exposed to the magazine and probably aware of the possibility of renewing over the web, but reinforcing the concept so often is causing a chance in response.

Which is true will make a difference in what formatting for the footer would be most effective.

Comment by: Hugh R | November 9, 2005

Hi Don,

Fascinating stuff!

Smart catalog publishers have known for years the value of putting their toll-free phone number on every single page. The reason is simple. Some nascent customers tear out a page with a specific product on it, with the intention of showing it to someone else, and then, when they're ready to buy, they've go the phone number right in front of them. No wondering whose catalog the page came from, or how to contact the seller.

Shouldn't magazines do the same? Wouldn't publishing a toll-free phone on each pager also give a boost to subscriptions? If the strategic intent is to organize around the customer, shouldn't we remember that for a lot of customers, dialing a phone number and reciting a credit card number is a lot easier than logging on to a website?

-- Peter

Comment by: Peter S | November 12, 2005

Hi Peter:

It is an interesting idea and easy to test with a dedicated 800 number. It may be that the web URL works because it is the promise of free information without having to reveal or engage.

For folks under 30, the URL is the way they shop and look for information. For print catalogs that list both, the 800 number still out pulls the URL by more than 2 to 1, but the balance is shifting to the Internet.

You could, of course, list both.

Don

Comment by: Don N | November 14, 2005

Hi Hugh:

As I understand it, 70 to 80% of the order are new.

And even for the renewals, we should take them any way the customers wants to make them.

Don

Comment by: Don N | November 14, 2005

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