E-Zine Roster Doubles in Size
Are inboxes suffering from e-zine glut? One is prompted to ask that after reading that the number of e-mail newsletters has grown from 588 in 2004 to 935 in 2005.
At least that’s the number cited by the Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters, which lists 11,985 newsletters in the U.S. and Canada, both online and offline.
That number, while it seems a little small, is consistent with a finding by eMarketer that half of all chief marketers plan to publish an e-zine this year. (E-Zine IQ, July 6).
According to Oxbridge, print newsletters have been declined over the past few years because of the media recession. Many businesses have turned to e-mail newsletters to attract customers to their Web advertising vehicles and garner direct marketing information.
Of the e-newsletters listed, 404 are weeklies. Another 359 are monthlies, and 112 are bi-monthlies. But there are also 143 dailies and 64 quarterlies.
The single largest subject category is computers and automation, with 233 e-letters. Next is medicine with 66. Business follows with 50 and banking and finance with 47.
Only 13 e-zines are devoted to law, although that is the single biggest category in print newsletters because of update services.
Circulation is hard to track, but some e-zines have subscriber lists that compare favorably with those of print magazines. For example, Travel Discount has a circulation of 4 million.
Several others have sub lists in the six-figure range. Business Tips has 325,000 subscribers, .Net Insight 300,000, AV Flash 130,000, Voice of the Diabetic 320,000 and FED Week (for federal and postal employees 275,000.
