Hockey fans might associate the “11,000 to one” odds with Montreal’s success in defeating Washington in the seventh game of the first round NHL playoffs.
I’m, however, looking more painfully at yesterday’s publication launch of the third issue of The Design and Construction Report.
I sent about 4,000 emails to my extended list announcing the publication. Tim Klabunde, through the Design and Construction Network, sent about 7,000 copies of his newsletter where he referenced and linked to the Design and Construction Report’s website.
Out of all of this, slightly more than 200 people visited http://www.dcnreport.com and (gulp) fewer than 20 appear to have opened the magazine.
On my 4,000+ name list, I received 19 requests to be removed from the mailing list (fortunately only one claimed I had sent spam), one email and one phone call in response to the publication.
Mimi Spangler, one of the contributors, asked in an email if she could receive a pdf file of her article separated from the rest of the magazine for her own marketing purposes. The one person who phoned me appears to have followed Mimi’s advice: “Bag LinkedIn for business development: Use the phone.” The young insurance representative from the Washington area asked if he could submit an article for a future issue and spent an 45 minutes or so picking my brain for ideas (and to build good will so I would publish his article when the time came to submit it.)
(I will ask my designer to provide Mini with her article copy. In the meantime, you can read it by going to Page 10 of the magazine.)
I have no trouble with the insurance broker’s initiative because he proved Mini’s point. However, he didn’t have to work nearly as hard as Montreal to defy the odds and win the playoff round. He simply picked up the phone.
But what does this say for my own apparently less-than-inspired marketing success?
After all (hopefully) we weren’t sending out a piece of junk email. The online magazine I think has substantive content with useful resources for the intended readers. Surely, just a few more than 20 out of 10,000 would want to read it. Where did I go wrong?
Of course, you can analyze this sort of thing to death and come up with a variety of interpretations. Maybe the big problem is we created too many “barriers” between the initial invitation and actually being able to read the magazine. In my email, you need to click twice to get from the cover page to the actual content. (I’m simplifying the process here: You can go straight to the magazine through the embedded link on this blog posting.)
Perhaps the magazine’s topics and themes just aren’t that interesting to the majority of readers. I based the cover story on the results of the Best Construction Blog competition and provided in-depth coverage of the competition which attracted more than 1,000 votes and 40 blog entries. With the magazine format, we could go into much greater and more comprehensive detail for this story than anywhere else. Could another cover story or topic have attracted better results?
Maybe you have another explanation.
Take a few minutes to think about this blog posting and consider the odds and your ability to control them. One reader out of 11,000 took the time to dial 888-432-3555 ext 224 to seek an opportunity to promote himself without spending a dime of his own money on marketing.
He won (if he follows up).
Have enjoyed your blog and look forward to reading your magazine this weekend. In regards to online magazines in general, I think part of the problem is that unless you are constantly on the computer, online publications have still not gained acceptance. Most people I know still get their news from newspapers, their take-out from flyers and their articles from maagazines. They will read a story on line if it is offered up in front of them(MSN,Yahoo) and looks interesting. To sit down and read a magazine on their computer, to most of us, is still a bit of a foreign concept.
If one of the articles came into my e-mail from you and I felt it was pertinent, there is no doubt I would spen the 3-4 minutes reading it.
Many online publications probably claim 10,20,50,000 subscribers but probably never publish their “click-through” rate. This is a very brave admission on your part showing:
a) You truly are interested in finding better and more effective ways of marketing your publication, and
b) You understand that by appealling our sense of obligation for recieving this magazine and being “personally” asked to open it you click through rate will go up.
I would be interested to find out the numbers after this weekend.
I guess it is like all great marketing that has worked…changing the buying(nee reading) habits of the public.
That`s it for now…keep up the good work!!
Chris, thanks for your comments.