There are several major catalogue sales companies that sell subscriptions to school libraries, government agencies and large corporations. These people usually buy through these catalogue sales companies rather than direct from the publisher. The publisher makes about 10% on each subscription sold for him by one of these agencies.

Co-op mailings are generally piggy-back mailings of your subscription offer along with numerous other business offers in the same envelope. Smaller mail order entrepreneurs do this under the name of big mail offers. Coming into vogue now are the postcard mailers. You submit your offer on a business reply postcard; the packager then prints and mails your postcard in a package with 40 or 50 similar postcards via third class mail to a mailing list that could number 100,000 or more. You pay a premium price for this type of mailing - usually $1000 to $1500 per mailing, but the returns are very good and you keep all the incoming money.

Another form of co-op mailing is where you supply a charge card company or department store with your subscription offer as a “statement mailing suffer.” Your offer goes out with the monthly statements; new subscriptions are returned to the mailer and billed to the customer’s charge card. The publisher usually makes about 50% on each subscription. This is one of the most lucrative, but expensive methods of bringing in new customers.

Direct mail agencies such as publishers clearing house can be a very lucrative source of new subscriptions, in that they mail out more than 60 million pieces of mail each year, all of which are built around an opportunity for the recipient to win a gigantic cash sweepstakes. The only problem with this type of subscription agency is the very low percentage of the total subscription price the publisher receives from these subscriptions, plus the fact that the publishers are required to charge a lower subscription rate than they normally charge.

There are also several agencies that offer introductory, sample copy and trial subscription offers, such as select information exchange and publisher exchange. With this kind of agency, details about your publication are listed along with similar publications, in full page ads inviting the readers to send $10 or $20 for trial subscription to those of his choice. The publishers received no money from these inquiries - only a list of names of people interested in receiving trial subscriptions. How the publisher follows up and is able to convert these into full term, and paying subscribers is entirely dependent upon his own efforts.

Most major newspapers will carry small, lightweight brochures or oversized reply cards as inserts in their sunday papers. The publisher supplies the total number of inserts, pays the newspaper $20 per thousand for the number of newspapers he wants his order form carried in, and then retains all the money generated. But the high costs of printing the inserts, plus the $20 per thousand for distribution, make this an extremely costly method of obtaining new subscribers.

Schools, civic groups and other fund raising organizations work in about the same manner as the cash-field agencies. They supply the solicitor and the publisher gets 25% or less for each new subscription sold.

uchenna ani-okoye is an internet marketing advisor.

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