I ordered a copy of The Week and on the flier it says "absolutely free" However when you call the number they go straight in to the sales pitch - "would you like to receive 13 copies at £1 per week?" I agreed to this and in the post two weeks later I received a letter saying the direct debit is £19.99 for 13 issues. I rang them up asking how come 13 issues cost £19.99 and they said "we should have said it was for 7 issues at a £1 each and then it increases, sorry must have been a mistake ...........or perhaps you misunderstood what we said!!

I thought I would ring up Time Out and they gave me the same sort of sales pitch. Has anyone else come across this? I personally think giving out the wrong information to consumers is very bad practice.

Most people probably don't notice how much they are paying but I sell subscriptions..........

Coalition - the script would have been clear about the deal, but perhaps the delivery not so clear.

It is, as you may find, the same with print and web offers - we subscription creatives have ways of disguising or diverting attention from how much money the subscription will actually cost the reader.

This practice can be criticised (as you have done) as not being fair and open, but as an arch exponent, multiple user, and dealer in all these devices, I have to say the final determinant is the revenue achieved.

I am clearly the devil's advocate here - but that is the way things are. But are we any worse than an arms dealer in that what I do is indiscriminate, earns money and can do some damage?

Most of the subscription promotions you see around are not that tricky. The ones that fall out of those consumer mags (the ones losing all the money) are promotions-by-numbers. But they are not like that because the publisher is being 'fair and open'. They are like that because of ignorance. They just copy others. If they knew how to market and bring in the money, they wouldn't have to close magazines like She, or lose the top spot like Cosmo did to Glamour ('Britains number one magazine').

In marketing, no-one wins by spending money. You win in marketing by getting some other poor sucker to spend his money.

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Peter Hobday
Copywriter / Marketing consultant
Publisher: Subscriptions Strategy newsletter
http://www.subscriptionsStrategy.co.uk

I disagree I don't think every publisher is out to screw the potential buyer and if they are it is extremely sad work ethic - one that I am definitely not in favour of!

Coalition  - if you read my post, you will see that I did not even suggest that 'every publisher was out to screw the potential publisher'.  That is not what is happening.

In fact, my argument is that most publishers just copy others -- and that is poor marketing.

The publishers that are out to 'screw' the potential buyers are few and far between. Mostly because they have started out with the wrong attitude.

The publishers who rely on diverting the attention of the prospect from the cost of the subscription are also few and far between. Because they are the clever ones. The real marketers. They either have an MD who is right on the marketing ball (there are 2 or 3 of those and yours isn't among them) or they hire a sneaky-snake type of person who hides all his promotional tricks from the public. (But makes money for the publisher.)

That sneaky-snake is willing to give up his ethics for the sake of others. A true believer.

Peter

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Peter Hobday
Copywriter / Marketing consultant
Publisher: Subscriptions Strategy newsletter
http://www.subscriptionsStrategy.co.uk

I got a flier in The Guardian this week for a free copy of TimeOut.  Phoned them up and got the free copy, then came the pitch which I think was for a year's subscription for £1.

They said it must be taken by direct debit (yes...for £1...) so I immediately thought no, they must be trying to set up a DD that will revert to full price after 12 months when I've forgotten all about it.

Then it struck me that this is a copy of the porn website strategy?  Perhaps they'll be adding a Page3 girl to TimeOut, I still won't setting up a DD though...

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Lee Branch
Founder
The Friday Pint Ltd

TheFridayPint.com / MediaSalesJobs.co.uk / TheMediaSalesCup.co.uk / ADSAUCE.net

Peter Hobday:

Coalition  - if you read my post, you will see that I did not even suggest that 'every publisher was out to screw the potential publisher'.  That is not what is happening.

In fact, my argument is that most publishers just copy others -- and that is poor marketing.

The publishers that are out to 'screw' the potential buyers are few and far between. Mostly because they have started out with the wrong attitude.

The publishers who rely on diverting the attention of the prospect from the cost of the subscription are also few and far between. Because they are the clever ones. The real marketers. They either have an MD who is right on the marketing ball (there are 2 or 3 of those and yours isn't among them) or they hire a sneaky-snake type of person who hides all his promotional tricks from the public. (But makes money for the publisher.)

That sneaky-snake is willing to give up his ethics for the sake of others. A true believer.

Peter

Coalition, If I were you I'd read Peters comments again. Not only is he right on the button (and if anyone would know it will be Peter) I think he's even saying (and corret me if I'm wrong Peter) that he's partly to blame for developing the startegy. 

“I think he's even saying (and correct me if I'm wrong Peter) that he's partly to blame for developing the strategy.”

Ian - yeah – I’m afraid so. Back in the 1980’s we invented a delayed-action standing order to sign up new trial prospects to Running Magazine.

We offered a huge discount ‘so the prospect could try the magazine over three months’. So the emphasis was (and is still with direct debits and CCC orders) on the trial discount, not on the forthcoming price rise. After three months the price rises to either the full rate or discount off the official rate. We are currently testing variables with various clients – each market and product is different. The media used makes a difference too. A telephone sale is different from an Internet sale for example.

So with the prospect ‘diverted’ or focused on the trial discount, he doesn’t really see the full price coming along as a price rise, just an expected ‘rate adjustment.’

The script used by the subscriptions tele-marketing operator should be revised to correct any perceived scam, by taking the following into consideration:

The balance between diverting the prospects attention (which is vital) and transparency (a big seller) is a bit of a conjuring trick. But then anyone who understands conjuring knows that the most important thing for a magician to learn is the art of distraction.

Although I refer earlier to this trick as ‘sneaky snake’ the method is used by all successful salesmen, politicians, lawyers and others who’s job it is to convince others of anything. To learn more about this, go to my website. There are around a thousand pages.

 Peter

 

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Peter Hobday
Copywriter / Marketing consultant
Publisher: Subscriptions Strategy newsletter
http://www.subscriptionsStrategy.co.uk