Fashion free magazine subscription

When you launch a magazine, your enthusiasm knows no bounds. Your budget, unfortunately, does. So unless your name is Time Inc. or Conde Nast, you must think beyond costly direct-mail strategies and News-stand testing to find more innovative circulation-building techniques. Here's how four entrepreneurs are meeting that challenge as they try to establish names for themselves.

fashionable events

In the fashion business, it's the decision-makers who matter most as readers. And Fashion Reporter publisher Matt Coffin knows where to find them. He's tailored his circulation strategy around placement, distributing the New York City-based bimonthly everywhere, from key fashion shows to the hotel rooms of fashion executives.

"One of the reasons this business works is that I know exactly where people in fashion are," says Coffin, who does business as Branded Media. "They're either working in the garment district in New York City or in a mart in California. We can then reach retailers around the country via database information."

Coffin launched the 25,000-circulation Fashion Reporter last March as a sort of Entertainment Weekly for the fashion world. So far, he's sticking with his initial controlled-circulation plan. The title is free for 75 percent of the largely New York City-based audience, including presidents and buyers of high-end fashion companies, as well as editors and stylists; the other 25 percent of readers pay for the magazine, either via newsstand or subscription sales.

To create the right audience mix, Coffin compiled his own list of names in addition to renting two others. (He's a fashion insider himself, having served as president of Model Properties, a licensing company for the modeling business he founded.) Overall, the publisher spent 10 percent of his $100,000 start-up budget on circulation costs such as postage, fulfillment and list rental.

Keeping costs low is an obvious goal for most publishers in the launch phase, so Coffin has focused his efforts on getting exposure at key industry events. He distributed 10,000 cover mock-ups and subscription cards at the New York fashion shows last spring, getting a response of nearly 16 percent. Reaction to Fashion Reporter has been so positive, Coffin says, that the publisher hopes to take the magazine monthly in March. His goal is to reach 40,000 readers by the end of this year and 85,000 over the next two years.

"Mossimo, a young executive and designer, came up to me at a trade show and told me he loves our charts," Coffin says. The charts, part of the "Coverage" section, track the work of stylists, photographers and designers on magazine covers. In fact, it's this section of Fashion Reporter that actually draws the most attention. "If the right people are reading us, that's the key," Coffin says. "It's our own kind of pass-along theory."

Over the next four years, Coffin would like to convert from controlled to 90 percent paid circulation through a combination of direct mad and cover wraps. This year, the team win test subscription offers and attach cover wraps to collect more demographic data. "We didn't want to worry about getting paid for subscriptions [at first]," Coffin says. "Since we're a hybrid -- we're read by consumers but predominantly by the trade -- we can get away with being controlled in the beginning."

the way to a

reader's heart

At On The Grill, publisher Barbara Fine is bowled over by the fervor of readers hungry for tidbits about grilling and barbecuing. In fact, 74 million Americans barbecue year-round, and Fine has built her circulation strategy around reaching them while the coals are still burning.

"We're trying to keep paid distribution and newsstand sales targeted where barbecuing is hottest," says Fine. The "hot" states include Texas, California, New York, Florida, Missouri and other Midwestern locales. "If one city in Texas isn't selling well, we'll add more titles to racks in cities like Dallas, where we know our sales are strong."

Based in Cooper City, Florida, On The Grill offers in-depth stories by grilling experts, recipes, new techniques, products and book reviews. It initially launched as a controlled title, sending direct-mail pieces to 125,000 people who had bought a grill within the past three months. Fine spent 20 percent of her start-up budget on fist rental and mailing to that list. Currently, the magazine has a mixed distribution of 50,000 paid and controlled readers. Nearly 15,000 grilling and barbecuing enthusiasts receive one free issue of the publication before the list is rotated, and 35,000 copies are sold through newsstands, bookstores and supermarkets. In addition, On The Grill is sent to select grill restaurants, Omaha Steaks retail outlets, plus 400 other retailers and gourmet shops. Although those issues were sent to retailers for free last year, Fine says she'll charge half of the $3.95 retail price per copy this year. But her plan is to keep the controlled/paid mix until the percentage of paid subscribers grows.

Fine expects On The Grill to have a pressrun of 75,000 by the summer, with an ultimate 80:20 mix of paid and controlled. It helps that the market of grillers has remained largely untapped until now, she says. "Except for the cooking magazines with their specials once a year, there's no true competition for us."

Insights from

Websight

The only thing more dizzying than navigating the vast number of Web sites these days is weaving your way through all the Web-focused magazines hitting the newsstands. Stephen Thommes, publisher of the 92,000-circulation Websight, is hoping to ride this rising wave of Web enthusiasm.

Because the bimonthly covers Web content rather than Web technology, its readers presumably explore the Internet on a regular basis. Thommes' circulation strategy reflects this phenomenon. Although skeptics have said it can't be done, the majority of Websight's subscription -- 33,000 so far -- have been generated via the Web.

Thommes says an order card for the paid-circulation title is linked to literally thousands of site -- with banners on advertisers, home pages as part of ad deals, or on reader sites (the magazine gives free banners to its readers). The order card explains the title's raison d'etre and includes a letter from the editor as well as a complete description of the magazine's content. "Each page [offers] a chance to subscribe or click for more information," Thommes explains.

The publisher and his partner, Stuart Turner (with financial backing from the executive producer of "Seinfeld"), have published seven issues of Websight since launching in January 1996 from their Culver City, California-based Navigate Media Inc. office; they plan to go monthly sometime this spring.

With Web surfers expected to reach the 200-million mark by the year 2000, Thommes figures that the number-one concern for users will be sorting through Web content. "The Web will be as big as television," Thommes predicts. "We envision two market segment-the people who get television or cable, and those who get the super-duper Internet. Our magazine is about content, not equipment, since the technology is getting easier to use. Remember, nobody cares about how televisions work. They care about what's on."

Thommes says they can use the Web to test sales packages and subscription strategies both quickly and inexpensively. "We're not talking about dropping two to four direct-mall packages a year," Thommes explains. "We don't have to deal with the slowness of direct mall. We can test offers constantly and measure response in real time. It's less like direct mad and more like direct-response TV."

Even with this Web-based approach, Thommes still spent 15 percent of the launch budget on circulation, including blow-in cards that have contributed to 18 percent of the current circulation. Although the basic subscription price is $14.95 for six issues, Websight is offered for $9.95 when sold at key trade shows.

The company plans to use the Web for more innovative circulation-building approaches, such as interactive gift subscriptions. "Let's say Bob wants to give you Websight as a gift," Thommes proposes. The would go to our site and buy as many subscriptions as he wants, and we'd e-mail you a note saying the magazine is on the way."

The publisher also wants to place time clocks or counters on the site to show users how many free gifts the magazine has given away as the number of new subscriptions grows. (contest winners get computers.) The lofty goal is to reach 500,000 readers in the next two years. "For us, direct mail just isn't in the budget," Thommes says. "We need to reach audiences more efficiently, so we'll stick to our circulation efforts on the Web."

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