A new Entertainment Weekly subscriber experiences the desperation publishers go to to maintain circulation levels. After subscribing to Entertainment Weekly by responding to a 26 issue offer, Jodster, after receiving just one issue, received a promotional piece to renew his subscription. After the third issue, he received a second promotion and after the fifth – still with 21 issues to go, he received the pictured “Last Chance!” offer. To those of us in the business, this is not unusual but the perception it creates among subscribers should be of interest to us.
Writing on his blog, after receiving the second renewal notice, Jodster wrote, “I still have 23 issues to go, and yet they want to get me to renew my subscription. Is the circulation department so inept that it would require more than twenty weeks to process a subscription renewal?” While keeping circulation up is, most assuredly, a nightmarish job, appearing inept to subscribers is probably not the perception publishers should create.
