New subs deal how about existing subbers?

STW in attempting to survive by attracting new subscribers in non shock event.

They are just pursuing a business model that grows through adding subscribers to the best of their abilities, trying to earn a living like the rest of us.

Hi Mark
Thanks for joining in.
“But no magazine can afford a deal that offers gifts to existing subscribers.”
Well as you will have read above C+ seems to be bucking that trend.
STW shop, well over the years i’ve had a raft of jerseys and t-shirts but even at members prices you’re not really doing anyone a big favour. I’ve brought them because i liked them not because of their outstanding value.
5% off at a distant bike shop, could most of us not do better than that either through “loyalty” to a LBS or the likes of CRC?
Plus that list of shops isn’t what it was.
Although there’s a saving over shop prices, in smiths the mag has to stand the same thumb test as every other mag.
So maybe over the year you only buy 6 and not 8 issue.
I didn’t ask for a hip flask, i only really asked for you to join in.
Maybe i need to “realign my values and loyalty” 😕

seems a fair enough answer to me, if it bothers anyone that much I am sure they could cancel their subscription wait a month and resubscribe to get the free gift.

bloody hell you are taking yourself a bit seriously aren’t you

i tell you what, my email is
mr wild m at hotmail dot com

send me your adress and i’ll BUY you a hip flask

Offering a free book that a publisher is happy to get rid of isn’t quite the same thing.

I subscribed just over a week ago, paid by debit card, Felt sorry after the hacker shenanians.
Do I qualify for free stuff?

Wildnres, i’m pretty sure that as you haven’t had the next/your 1st issue yet that your subscription hasn’t started, so i’d be be surpised if if the new rates at least don’t apply. i mean the new rates apply to me and i haven’t changed since issue i.

Gary
3/10 you really must try harder.

Discount on hip flasks to existing subscribers? Everybody happy(ish)?

Not that I want one, already got a perfectly good hip flask – and I got a free DVD when I subscribed anyway.

Imagine if ST give away shares with subscriptions and then you lot all turned up for the shareholders’ meetings!

yes, I certainly wasn’t trying to imply that stw should do something similar. My guess is the books were on their way to pulp anyway…

Maybe i need to “realign my values and loyalty” quite clearly you take things way too seriously.

3/10 you really must try harder Sorry but I really do not have a clue what you’re on about.

Well as you will have read above C+ seems to be bucking that trend.

It sounds like C+ got given X copies of a book, so emailed X subscribers to offer it to them. That’s not quite the same as sending a free gift to every subscriber.

Wildnes
Nice offer but as you’ll note from above i’m not that bothered. (other than saying i never asked for one i’ve not mentioned them)
“bloody hell you are taking yourself a bit seriously aren’t you”
no not really, i have got a bit of a point to make I suppose, but much has been jest…….

Mike
“Well as you will have read above C+ seems to be bucking that trend.

It sounds like C+ got given X copies of a book, so emailed X subscribers to offer it to them. That’s not quite the same as sending a free gift to every subscriber. “

Yes your right its quite clearly not quite the same.
Nor is it the same as
“But no magazine can afford a deal that offers gifts to existing subscribers.”

Subscribers already do get a discount off hipflasks in our shop.

The discount rate in our shop is a default 10%. The helmet cams on sale in our shop are currently discounted to subscribers by over £15 plus you get a free t-shirt.

Unfortunately, if none of the extra discounts and shop deals are of interest then I hope the 25% off the shop price and the actual enjoyment of reading the mag every issue is enough. I’m not sure what else we can possibly do. Our subscribers club is something that only we offer – no other bike mag does that currently and that is designed to try and help retain subscribers in addition to any free gifts we offer to new subscribers. Do any other mags offer more than we do to all their subscribers? The C+ book deal is a one off deal. Our subscriber club is a permanent fixture available to every subscriber throughout the entire life of their subscription.

Nor is it the same as
“But no magazine can afford a deal that offers gifts to existing subscribers.”

Mark’s obviously not one of the few C+ subscribers who were offered the free book 🙂

I’ve subscribed since before issue 1 and all I’ve ever got in return is a load of bike magazines. 😉

I need my fuel injection pump re-conditioned on me landy, if stw pay for it that’ll negate the need to send me a hip flask.
Deal?

Gary_M – Member

mrdoubletake, as above if you’re really breaking your heart over it then cancel and resubscribe. Easily solved eh.

Gary who are you, the STW doorman?

I have been subscribing to this mag for years, before their was a shop, buffs, hip flasks and DVD’s, and I will continue to do so because I enjoy the mag.

However, like speshpaul I also think it’s important to remember existing subscribers once in a while.

So you don’t then Simon. thought not.

You’re jumping to conclusions and wrong :o) It’s a matter of (now deleted) record.

Mark
If you are doing us subscribers a favour with the shop, is the Go pro hero deal the best one to demonstrate this?
The shop is primarily a shop, a business line for STW and a chance for a bit of self promotion and flag waving. It’s not very often that someone would make a purchase from the shop based on price alone, is it?
10% off a product that only you sell (your branded items) is neither here nor there, could it be that subscribers pay the real price and everyone else pays the real price + 10%?

The 25% reduction over shop price of the magazine applies to both old and new subscribers, so as long as we talking about subscriptions it makes no differance. And if we are talking about all purchases then each issue needs to pass the thumb test.

i’ll probably go on with my subscription, i certainly don’t feel mercenary enough to cancel and rejoin just to get something.

What else could you do? Well that kind of was Oldfarts original question-
What can existing subscribers expect?Any incentives?

Simon it appears that your records have been deleted.

What price ‘loyalty’ if it has to be bought ?

mrdoubletake you wwere whinging so I gave you a solution. I’d have said the same thing had it been any mag. Clearly you have no business sense.

could it be that subscribers pay the real price and everyone else pays the real price + 10%? 😆 I dispair.

good grief

quit all your complaining. as someone living abroad i dont any freebies ever and have to pay much more as well.

Although everytime i re-subscribe to Dirt they send me a t-shirt

Gary, so your their accountant then, not their doorman?

Besides that I didn’t like your solution. Why should I have to spend time canceling my subscription and filling in my bank details to subscribe again!

Simon it appears that your records have been deleted.

I have stated quite a few times in these discussions that I subscribe to the mag as my support for the site in view of certain other browsing habits I am discouraged from mentioning.

mrdoubletake I don’t really care if you like it or not. It’s one solution, another is stop being so petty, I have others but I doubt you would like them.

And why oh why would the stw accountant suggest you cancel your subs then resubscribe. That makes no sense at all. Are you as stupid as you appear to be?

Paul,

I’m telling you that our Subscribers’ Club IS our incentive. It’s a discount club that goes further than just the products in our shop. Plus 10% is a pretty large cut into our own margins.

Purchasing gifts to send to thousands of existing subscribers, as lovely and generous as that would be, is simply not a viable way of doing business. The huge cost of doing that would come no where breaking even and would be a financial disaster! We just sent a letter to all of our Direct Debit subscribers. It was a plain letter in a small envelope that was posted second class. We have 2300 subscribers on Direct Debit. Just send a plain old letter cost us £800. I quote that example purely as a way to put the costs into perspective. Imagine the cost of sending a gift to all those subscribers and how much the final bill would be. If we managed to somehow obtain 5000 widgets for free the fact they would bump the postage up to small packet rates would multiply that cost by at least 4 or 5. So we are talking a cost of say £4k to send a FREE gift (free to us somehow) to just half of our total subscribers. So approximately £8k to send out a gift that we managed to source for free to all of our subscribers.

Our subs cost between £27 and £30 depending on how you pay for it. Just how on earth are we going to see a payback at all from that kind of expense?

It’s just not an economic option. It’s not a sensible business option for us at all. Right now it would be commercial suicide!

No other mag has a Discount Club for all it’s subscribers valid for the entire life of a subscription. That is the only possible way we can offer an incentive to existing subscribers in addition to the 25% discount off the cost of the magazines. And lets also add in to that the free postage. An 8 issue subscription = £5.50 in postage that we pick up the bill for. So for the full value of your subscription you need to factor that in too.

We genuinely are doing everything we possibly can do to make it worthwhile being a subscriber. We do not abandon our subscribers once they have signed up. To do so would be similarly commercially idiotic. We need to retain our customers like every other business. But we need new subscribers all the time. All magazines need new subscribers and all magazines run promotional offers exclusively to attract them.

The feeling of missing out is one we appreciate and sympathise with and we have tried to at least take the sting off with our Subscribers Club. I’m afraid that is all we can do. Hopefully there will be something in the Club that will offer some benefit to as many of our subscribers as possible at some point.

Gary, I must be I’m giving you the time of day!

Really, and you still survive in the modern world. I’m shocked.

This debate has just prompted a quick STHQ staff meeting on the issue. We’ve got a few more ideas for ways to give extra value to existing subscribers that we are going to try out. Unfortunately it won’t involve sending out any free gifts though for the costing reasons above, but hopefully it will give subscribers even more chances to get more from our subscriptions than just the heavily discounted mags 🙂

Where are the new sub deals? I can only see the STD sub thing.

I really dont understand the whole hipflask / ridiggn thing, but then I hate beardysinglespeeders.

…which is why we have a dvd option for those that aren’t so fixated on drinking whisky as we are 🙂

The current Hipflask deal is advertised in the current mag and also on our front page here…
Free Gift For New Direct Debit Subs[/url]

Thanks – bookmark brings me straight to the forum.

I think to be fair you should offer free syringes for heroin addicted subscribers, ideally with a nice ST logo on the side…

which is why we have a dvd option for those that aren’t so fixated on drinking whisky as we are

What about tea totalers who don’t have a DVD player and are existing subscribers? What’s in it for them? Hey? Hey!

😉

You know… Marmite comes in various types and sizes of tubs now. Some big.. some small.. Some squeezy.. there’s even marmite crisps..

Trouble is I just don’t like marmite. So I don’t eat any of them.. I tried writing to the manufacturer and asking them to produce a type of marmite that tasted nice because there was simply none of their products that I liked and you know what they said?

..well they didn’t say anything cos I just made all that up but I like to imagine they would have said.. sorry.. but in that case perhaps Marmite is just not for you.

🙂

I want free Marmite with my subs! Yum :o)

Was this free Marmite that you weren’t actually paying for that came with something on which you’d already had a 25% discount and free postage?

🙂