A magazine devoted to helping readers get by on less is using the same strategy to launch itself.
Daunted by the recent postal rate hike, Budget Living has opted to avoid direct mail prospecting. Instead it will rely on arrangements with Web sites, advertisements in catalogs, and other non-traditional means — all at about half the cost of a prospect subscriber mailing, said the magazine’s circulation consultant Carole Mandel.
This effort also will be assisted by the recent change in magazine auditing rules put forth by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The bureau now permits magazines to take in as little as a penny per subscriber, she noted.
“A good direct mail campaign might cost as much as $50 per thousand [names] to launch,” Mandel added.
For Budget Living, that would mean an initial outlay of more than $125,000, but the magazine expects to spend half of that on the introduction.
Budget Living planned to roll out in October with a circulation of 440,000, including about 200,000 subscribers garnered from preliminary work done during the summer by subscription agents Dial America Marketing, Quality School Plan, Ebsco, Media Outsourcing and Kable News Co.
The magazine, which targets a mostly female audience in the 25 to 44 age range, has also started marketing itself through some unusual joint promotions.
For example, Budget Living is now in a high-profile, two-way arrangement with furniture slipcover company Sure Fit.
For its part, New York-based Sure Fit was set to drop a 16-page catalog and a full-page ad into the entire print run of the magazine’s premiere issue, said Budget Living Media president Eric Rayman.
In late September, Sure Fit included an ad for Budget Living in its regular e-mail newsletter to its 1.2 million customers, said Liana Toscanini, vice president of insurgence at Sure Fit.
What’s more, Sure Fit is also stuffing Budget Living subscription insert cards in all its mail order fulfillment packages and will run Web site banner advertisements and e-mail promotions.
Budget Living placed a micro-button ad for a free trial issue and a year’s subscription for $9.95 on the Sure Fit Web Site (www.surefit.net). The copy read, in part, “Budget Living is the new magazine dedicated to helping you find affordable, stylish solutions for your decorating needs. The editors do the shopping to find the best buys and pack each issue to help readers decorate, entertain, dress and even save money.
On top of that, Budget Living editors provided design consultation and furnishings for the $10,000 living room makeover grand prize in the eighth annual “Ugly Couch Contest” aired on ABC TV’s “Regis & Kelly Show” in August. This contest, which sought to find America’s most offensive settee, received 1,051 entries.)
Will these efforts with Sure Fit continue?
“The Web site [micro-button] ad will run indefinitely but the e-mail campaign was just one time,” said Toscanini.
“It’s all experimental at this point.”
The magazine has a similar arrangement with the housewares retail chain Bed Bath and Beyond. The chain is running an ad in Budget Living, and will insert copies of the premiere issue into 5,000 of its largest orders, said Rayman. The company’s ad in Budget Living contains a 20% off coupon for purchases at Bed Bath and Beyond.
Budget Living also conducted an October promotion with discount carrier JetBlue Airways, giving away 10,000 copies of the magazine to passengers. The copies carried an outside sticker that read, “Finally a Magazine That Thinks Like Jet Blue.”
Budget Living will continue to avoid mail at least for the rest of this year. It might use it in 2003, but Rayman pointed out that it all depends on the results of these other unconventional efforts.
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