Synapse's FreeBizMag.com finally has a serious competitor, which will make lots of B2B publishers seeking subscribers happy. The Subscription Network was founded a year ago in Aug 2002, but didn't gain much traction until it was bought by Magazines.com in April. Now it's powerhousing forward to become the top feeder of B2Btrade mag circulation from online promotions in the US.
I called up Cliff Mulcahy, Founder and VP Business Media to find out how online-only pubs can use his service. (Note: in a former life he was associate publisher of PC Magazine.) Here's what he told me:
- Yes, they are adding co-registration tech by possibly early Oct so ezine publishers will be able to piggyback opt-in offers onto magazine sub forms when people filling them out are in the right niche demographic for the ezine too.
The cost would be roughly 50% of what it costs to get a new qualified mag sub though the system as long as you don't ask any further qualification questions beyond 'tick this box to opt-in.' Costs are negotiable, but assume a new mag sub is around $10. (Synapse is around the same price range.)
If the name is already on your files, he won't charge you for it. I get a lot of dupes from some co-reg partners so this could be a big savings.
- Mulcahy drives traffic by putting magazine offers on a wide network of affiliate sites, many of which are vendors instead of content sites. Example: See the free subscription link at the lower left side of this page at Ricoh-usa. (http://www.ricoh-usa.com/)
- Mulcahy's justifiably proud of his registration process which is vastly streamlined over Synapse's current one. They don't do a good job of merging various pub's qualification forms yet, so users who want multiple pubs are forced to answer the same questions repeatedly.
Frankly, now that we are building a new database so I'll be able to track name value by acquisition source (at last, at last!), I'm definitely planning on testing buying opt-ins from both systems and comparing results in early 2004. I can hardly wait. http://www.subscriptionnetwork.net/subnetwork/bm?cmd=fw p=random_mag
