LivingSocial deals site members received an email late last week offering 20 weeks of the Herald Sun on Saturdays and Sundays for just $24. That’s 60 cents per newspaper delivered, just about what it will cost the newsagent to do the delivery. The trouble is, I suspect that the distribution newsagent will not get this much from each delivery. I expect that they will ‘partner’ with News Limited on this loss making campaign.
A just sixty cents a newspaper I wonder how much interest there will be among subscribers in each of the newspapers delivered and the advertising they carry. I bet that some of the 2,440 who had signed up when I checked the site figured that $24 was such a small amount no matter if they would not have time to read every issue.
Steep discounting is a losers game. I think that newspaper publishers would be better off stopping all deep discount deals and thereby understand exactly where they stand in terms of genuine reader interest. Deals like this one lead to a false view of sales and readership.
The other issue for advertisers is the number of people who take the deal and then neglect to redeem the voucher they purchase. Is this counted as a sale of the newspaper for the 20 weeks?
I know this is about newspapers but did you see the cycling mag $20 a year subscription??Happening way to often and people expect a bargain and don’t want to pay retail
Distribution agents in Victoria get the full commission for all subscriptions from HWT.
Mark i would like to take out 200 each day when it changes to smh how would that go?Might even make money on home delivery
News Ltd has responded with:
– The purpose of the campaign is to encourage customers to sample the weekend home delivery for a period of time on the weekend. Our experience shows that this type of approach is quite successful in upselling subscribers to a greater number of days at the end of the term on an ongoing basis….much more successful than simply cold calling customers with a 7-day deal.
– Newsagents are not being asked to contribute to the campaign and will receive their full commission and delivery fee entitlements as has been the case with all of our home delivery subscription offers over the last few years
-The only sales counted out of this campaign are those related to redeemed vouchers.
– Advertisers purchase on readership…not circulation. If customers buy the paper but don’t read the paper, it is picked up in the readership surveys