Here are what percentage of magazines publish newsletters -- by type of magazine. These numbers include advertiser-supported or custom-published newsletters.
- 32% B-to-B magazines
- 24% Consumer magazines
- 30% Farm magazines
- 43% Healthcare (professional) magazines
- Metro/regional mags: 20% B-to-B & 22% consumer
- Canadian magazines: 18% B-to-B & 24% consumer
Source: Ancillary Profits, Intertec Publishing
Magazines have four key advantages over non-magazine competitors, that should give them a substantial profit advantage:
Lists: List rental makes up a large portion of circulation promotion costs, and those costs eat up 30-35% of every revenue dollar for newsletters. Magazines, having their own list, avoid this cost.
Ad sales expertise: 20-25% of newsletters accept ads (although most of them do not put ads INSIDE the newsletter). Yet, newsletters have not—until recently—had the expertise or the contacts for selling ads. Due to the Internet, more newsletter companies are developing ad sales capabilities, so this advantage is shrinking.
Instant credibility: Potential subscribers know your editors and (hopefully) respect their market expertise.
Lower unit costs for ancillary products: When newsletters publish books, special reports, videos, etc., they have a much smaller universe to whom they can promote than magazines do. Thus newsletters must produce fewer units at a higher cost. Ancillary product sales for newsletters spun off magazines should be much more profitable.
Despite the advantages, magazines have been remarkably poor at marketing profitable newsletters. This failure is usually due to one or more of the following:
Editorial & design: Magazine editorial & design will almost always fail in newsletters. Magazine editors, writers & designers need to learn what works in newsletters.
Circulation: Magazine circulators are usually not experienced in paid-subscription newsletters. Some magazine tactics work and others fail miserably. Plus there are several tactics used almost exclusively for newsletter marketing that magazine circulators probably won't know.
Too fat a cost structure: Most magazines spend far too much on a newsletter, including: staffing, edit salaries, production values & design, printing, and more. In fact, The Newsletter Group is usually able to save a magazine more than its fee -- simply by pointing them to a different printer!
Newsletter added on to other responsibilities: Conversely, some magazines try to have their magazine editorial and circulation staffs handle the newsletter as an add-on. It almost never works.
Management which doesn't understand paid circulation: Two ways advertising-oriented management kills newsletters are:
- Giving lots of free copies of the newsletter to advertisers
- Killing direct mail campaigns to meet short-term financial goals
