The Audit Bureau of Circulations confirmed this week that magazine sales were down another 10% in the last half of 2011, representing a loss of over 32 million single copy sales from the previous year. The decline in subscriptions, which accounts for about 90% of all sales, has been consistently sitting at around 1% each year. During my own annual review and renewal exercise, I can tell you one very clear reason why this is true: magazines clearly do not embrace or appreciate technology.
I personally subscribe to over 10 titles ranging from business to fashion, parenting, and fitness. And every year I hope that the process of renewal will get better than sending a renewal card via snail mail. It has yet to happen.
Have you ever used the online subscription services that most magazines provide? They are the most useless in terms of utility, have a horrific user interface, and rarely actually work. The only progress I’ve seen in five plus years is that SOME of the sites no longer require me to find my account number (yes, THAT account number – the one that is usually covered up by markings from the post office, or completely missing as the labels stay on for about 2 seconds.) Most of the time, after you painstakingly enter in your complete address, blood type, and name of your first grade teacher, they STILL cannot find your account information. And when they do, usually it’s wrong, or better yet….the link to renew tells you that you CANNOT RENEW.
It seems to me that given the reality in numbers you’d make it as easy as possible to manage your subscribers. You’d invest in what has to be very simple technology to manage your customers, and also effectively communicate with them regarding their subscription. Why hasn’t this industry caught up? Do they just not care? Have they been resting on their laurels like the newspaper industry? What are your thoughts?