Targeting the Green
New research is helping Ogden Publications Inc. better target “green” consumers.
A survey — which polled three panels of subscribers to the company’s magazines like Utne Reader, Mother Earth News and Natural Home, as well as other consumers identified as green or influential — showed that Ogden readers were twice as likely to talk about environmental subjects or own a hybrid automobile, says Bryan Welch, publisher and editorial director of the Topeka, KS-based publisher.
All the company’s direct mail materials are made from post-consumer recycled paper pulp. And a year ago, 4% of the subscriptions were generated online, jumping this year to 10%.
But despite a concern for things green, Ogden isn’t cutting back on direct mail — it currently sends out about 5 million pieces annually.
“The fact that our lifeblood is nourished by our concern for the environment is obvious. But we can’t fulfill our mission of sharing information with that audience without being successful as a business,” Welch notes. “So we continue to mail as aggressively as we ever have, but we’re shifting to online sources, because in the aggregate they’re more efficient.”
About 3 million people read Odgen’s environmentally focused titles, and annual growth runs 15% to 20%. Welch says the Web is helping the company target readers by providing data on which pages people visit and how long they view them.
“We can learn a tremendous amount about what they want to read,” he says.
