Highlights for Children experiments with premiums, polybags and price The bright blue 9-inch by 12-inch polybag is a real eye-catcher: A smiling snowman looks out from the lower corner, its long carrot nose dusted with snow. The word “Free!” draws attention to the premium: “Shimmer” stickers, exposed in a sea of color through a peekaboo window on the back of the bag.
This “very successful” package – Highlights for Children’s gift-giving control for prospects – is the culmination of years of tests that continue to tweak such variables as price, copy, color, premium and packaging, notes Marilyn Fiske, senior vice president of Highlights’ magazine group.
“We’ve been at this a long time,” says Fiske of the magazine founded in 1946 by two retired teachers. “We do a tremendous amount of testing.”
The campaign mails once a year in August to 15 million to 20 million prospects and includes a variety of tests. A minimum of 50,000 pieces must be sent to ensure the test’s statistical validity. “We need to be confident that test results are real and not a fluke,” Fiske says.
To find prospects, Columbus, OH-based Highlights goes back to many of the same rented files year after year but also tries out new lists and selects. And while most gift-givers are grandparents, marketers also tap such selects as age, interests in reading and education, income and the willingness to spend an average amount.
This year’s mailing experiments with numerous premiums including variations of stickers, gift labels and a greeting card. Another trial uses a red polybag adorned with a simple gold bow. A gift tag dangling from the bow touts the benefits of the magazine compared with a “free” premium. Yet another test plays up Highlights’ money-back guarantee – which has not gotten much attention – and several different price offers.
With each round of tests, there are firsts. Highlights is debuting an auto-renewal offer for donors as well as an opportunity to place orders on its Web site (www.highlightsforchildren.com). A unique code helps track the test back to the offer.
But for all the careful planning, some changes to the mail plan have come about as a result of unplanned events. When the stock market took a dive, for example, so did the response for the gift-giving campaign. The crash prompted Highlights to spread out the risk of dropping millions of pieces at once by breaking its mailing into two groups.
It was a lesson learned, says Fiske of the 15% to 20% decline in response.
“The nation was frantic,” she says. “People weren’t worried about buying a Christmas present.”
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