Creating a concept: how to describe what your product does; Be safe! Borrow an idea!

Should an editor be a marketer too? Subscriptions Strategy’s Seven Motivators; Selling book summaries on subscription; How to engage with your readers; Using fear to sell

Case studies: The Week; Soundview Executive Book Summaries; Daily Mail

Dear Colleague,

A marketer moves constantly between two key positions: success and failure.

But it’s not an up and down movement – it’s more to and fro. As failures happen they are duly logged in an information bank to guide future activity. And therein lies their enormous value – they are used to steer the company towards profit.

When the marketer arrives at a position of success, he receives fuel for the company machine to function independently; to finance more tests - failures and successes - and to pay for future development. Perhaps rather than ‘success and failure’, better words would be ‘positive and negative results’.

There is a huge gap between failure and success. In that middle ground thousands of publications lie almost motionless, kept alive by benefactors. They are the ‘strugglers’.

In this issue of Subscriptions Strategy, we look at a direct mail pack from a struggler and compare it with a more successful effort from another publisher. The two look similar, but the struggler has failed to communicate the essence of the message: the concept or ‘Unique Selling Proposition’. Without a good USP, the title will continue to struggle.

You’ll also learn why it’s much safer to borrow someone else’s idea, no matter how old it is – as long as it’s still working today.

At the heart of any business, media or otherwise, is marketing. For a businessperson, marketing skills are vital to identify and build a successful community.

A lukewarm or tired market is not comfortable for long, which is why companies such as IPC, EMAP and National Magazines will close or sell a struggling title that is taking up a lot of time and not going anywhere. It’s a core business principle to concentrate one’s resources on profitable products. 

In a perfect world that’s what would happen. Unfortunately, the middle ground is difficult to avoid because most test results settle within it. The ideal is not to settle – it is to carry on testing various concepts, making changes to your marketing approach until you find a hot spot that resonates with your prospects.

The changes you make could be to the price, or to your market - it could be that you are not reaching the right audience. You could be too early. Or perhaps your concept is wrong.

Creating a workable concept- a USP

Explaining what your publication does is not easy! That’s why most big, successful companies use copywriters.

What your publication does is very different from what it is. For example: ‘The Best of the British and Foreign Media’ describes a news magazine but offers no reason for the prospect to act. It doesn’t explain what the benefit is for him. If he can reply: “Good for you” or “So what?” then you have not created a workable concept.

Peter Hobday

P.S. Update: Since this issue was published, The Week magazine has found its marketing niche and is successfully building subscriptions through loose insert cards in national press linked to a telesales operation. Total estimated annual subscription revenue is £10.1 million.

Members-only section Subscriptions Strategy issue 66 >>>