Free birth certificate online

Byline: Barbara Love

The U.S. Postal Service, which began testing sales of magazine subscriptions in post offices last September, is now doing the same online, in partnership with subscription agent Magazine Mall, Inc. (MagMall).

The one-year pilot program, which launched in December, promotes discounted subs to business customers and USPS employees through a Mag-Mall.com link situated on the USPS Web site (www.USPS.com/magazines). Site users can link to an English- or Spanish-language version of the USPS Magazine Subscription Store and choose among more than 1,000 consumer titles from most major publishers, including Hearst Magazines, Conde Nast, G+J USA Publishing, Hachette, Meredith, Rodale, Primedia, Newsweek, Inc. and Forbes Inc. (Time Inc. titles are not participating.)

Users may purchase individual or multiple, school/business subs. All offers placed via MagMall are hard, requiring use of a credit card, check or money order. The USPS is offering business customers and its employees 15 percent off of the total order value at MagMall. (MagMall offers subscriptions at "savings of up to 85 percent off retail prices.") The USPS also is considering testing deeper discounts - 20 to 25 percent off MagMall order total, according to Christopher Ashe, program manager of Magazine Subscriptions Online for the USPS and a marketing specialist for product management-flats. All discounts are deducted from the USPS's revenue-sharing account.

The USPS receives a percentage of gross new-sub and renewal sales (including gift certificate sales). The partners declined to disclose specifics. Publisher remit percentages are the same as those offered on specific titles through the main Mag-Mall site.

Prospects linking to MagMall through the USPS site are informed that they are now in a distinct site, with its own user parameters. "We can't run a co-branded Web site, because there would be the perception that the service is owned and operated by the USPS, which it's not," explains Ashe.

The USPS is responsible for promoting the subscription service, while MagMall handles all fulfillment, processing and customer service.

Thus far, the service has been marketed through internal postal communications - primarily daily and weekly electronic newsletters - and through banner ads on the USPS site. In addition to offering discount-sub coupons online, the USPS has been providing coupons for use in the online-sub store by local-area businesses and their employees in five locations (Nashville, TN; Flushing, NY; Rutland, NY; Mesa, AZ and Chicago).

According to Ashe, early results have been promising. During the first month of the test, the site attracted 7,600 MagMall visitors (4,500 were unique), 3.8 percent of whom ordered subs, he reports. Average purchase price was $32.65, and sales totaled $5,800.

Starting this month, the USPS also will promote the service through external communications to commercial mailers and at 20 trade shows, including Comdex.

"We'll be giving discount codes to readers of the Postal Bulletin and Memo to Mailers and trade show attendees that stop by the Postal Service booths," says Ashe.

In addition to the extra discounts, the USPS is counting on the consumer confidence factor inherent in the service's association with the Postal Service. The sub site also promotes security, offering online fraud protection/encryption on all transactions. The USPS does not retain personal information on subscribers. "All transactions through our site are transparent and visible," says Ashe. "We work strictly at the invoice level."

MagMall owns the subscriber names and will offer consumers the opportunity to renew on its site, but publishers can go after renewals, as well. (For example, a subscriber to Boston through the USPS-MagMall partnership received a renewal-at-birth notice from the publisher within one month of sign-up.)

MagMall founder/CEO Jason Ciment points out that the USPS has the capability to use zip code demographics to target-market sub offers through the mail system to households in the future, if it so chooses. However, according to Ashe, marketing the service through the mail system to residential and retail customers would have Privacy Act implications and is not within the objectives of the pilot test.

MagMall was selected from a pool of seven online sub agents that applied to partner with the USPS as part of a formal Request for Information Evaluation Process. Ashe says that MagMall presented the best solution based on revenue-sharing, titles carried and adherence to USPS selection criteria. Ciment says that he believes that MagMall's hard-offer-only policy helped the site win the contract. "If a customer comes to MagMall to place an order, they're signing up for a full subscription," he says. "The intention is more solid than someone signing up for a free trial." On the technology side, "Our shopping-cart system gives the USPS a very high level of analysis in real time, so that they can see what promotions are working or not working," he adds. "Plus, subscribers can set up a MagMall user account, which enables them to transact most of their subscription business online."

USPS RETAIL SUB TEST: JURY STILL OUT

Meanwhile, the fate of a program in which subscriptions are being sold in post offices is still uncertain.

As previously reported in CM (July, page 9), Conde Nast, Time Inc. and Hearst teamed with the USPS to run a test of sub sales at 20 post office locations in Long Island, NY from late September 2002 until the end of last month. Four-color brochures in spinner racks were used to promote a selection of 70-plus magazines, including nearly all of the three main publishers' titles, as well as National Geographic and TV Guide.

At press time, participating publishers could not confirm that the test would continue. "We're still very much in the developmental stage," said Bridget Wells, director, partnership marketing, agency and ABC reporting for Hearst.

Still, the USPS was receptive to testing a gift-themed brochure over the holidays, according to Douglas Glazer, director of business development for Time Inc. "The test was doing well enough that the post office remained interested in the idea and in magazines," he says. The holiday brochure replaced the original during late November and December, and included gift language and a donor form. The USPS declined comment on the test.