“What would The Jewish Week do?”

PROOF BOOK

Just as The Wall Street Journal serves as a subscription marketing model to the world of business publishing, The Jewish Week plays that role for many regional Jewish publishers across the nation who look to New York to see how the leading newspaper for America’s largest Jewish community manages it’s circulation.

I have been blessed, so to speak, to create many of The Jewish Week’s promotions over the past several years under the direction of the Associate Publisher and Marketing Director, Rich Waloff and his colleagues, Paul Bukzin the paper’s Circulation Manager, and Gary Rosenblatt who is Editor and Publisher.

Here’s something we’re creating now that may benefit those looking in from Cleveland or Baltimore or Phoenix or Los Angeles or Milwaukee or St. Louis or Philadelphia — all members of the American Jewish Press Association to whom I’ve had the pleasure of speaking.

It’s a bangtail blow-in, a (shall we say colorful?) name that describes those combination subscription card/envelopes that fall out of magazines and newspapers usually to the general annoyance, when not occasional response, of readers.

Blow-ins, and their cousins the bind-ins, tend to be profitable for several reasons:

1. They reach newsstand and pass-along readers “in the moment” — at their highest point of interest.

2. They’re intrusive — literally falling into laps if not on the floor of highly qualified prospects.

3. They ride along with the issue — by-passing the always high cost of lists and postage associated with direct mail.

Bangtails with their built-in payment envelopes (like you see in your credit card bills) are also smart:

4. They encourage and embrace cash with the order — well, actually, checks or credit card info.

5. Which, in turn, eliminates the need for a series of expensive direct mail billing efforts — again dispensing with postage and printing costs.

As you can see, the blow-in bangtails we’re proposing for The Jewish Week follow the fundamentals of Circ-101.

6. They feature a discount — typically the #1 driver of response.

7. They connect the subscription to personal emotion — usually a strong motivator.

8. The changing images and headlines create variety — refreshing attention week after week.

9. The price savings is presented in a voucher format — proven to be the fastest, most-effective presentation of value.

The rest is DM-101

10. Show the product.

11. Offer a premium for a longer commitment.

12. Downplay the website…Downplay the website? I often get asked, “Why not do away with bangtails — perhaps too blow-ins and bind-ins — and simply run in-issue ads with the offer and a website address?” This would allow prospective subscribers to log on, order up, and pay directly.

If only that worked. Unfortunately, testing has shown it’s doubly difficult — rare and often impossible — to profitably move prospects from print to a website while making their desire to order so compelling they actually go on to complete the transaction.**

If you, too, decide to create blow-in bangtails for your in-issue subscription offers, you’ll find there are lots of envelope manufacturers who feature the format. And many printers who can produce them. You might also consider over-printing your needs by a thousand or two so your editors and writers can have some to hand out as self-contained subscription promotions at talks they give or conferences they attend.

B&W Press in particular has made the bangtail something of a specialty for the magazine and newspaper industry. Their prices are indeed low. But so too is the print quality (the inexpensive paper does not lend itself to good quality four-color reproduction). However you may not need high fidelity — and the extra it costs probably will not produce a commensurate increase in response. It usually doesn’t to my chagrin.

In the few times I’ve used B&W on behalf of clients, I have found them more than somewhat difficult. So fair warning. I think they may have an aversion to working with outside creative agencies as opposed to directly with cost-is-the-object publishers. Of course, it could just be me B&W wished to avoid. So try them yourself and see if you agree!

__
**For some reason — as Les Wunderman brilliantly showed with his famous “gold box” for Columbia House***— the idea works well in reverse: Successfully clueing-in TV viewers to mark a special box on an order form they would see in print ads and inserts*** produced a ton of extra sales. I wonder if this same technique would also work getting buyers from a print ad to a website … and suspect the reason it hasn’t happened yet is because we need creative ideas equal to Wunderman’s.

***Originally, I mistakenly wrote Publisher’s Clearing House instead of Columbia House, and referenced direct mail instead of print ads and free standing inserts.

Respond to this idea | Link to this idea |