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Crains celebrates 1st birthday with subscription boost | Print |  Email to a friend
Friday, 19 December 2008

Crains celebrates 1st birthday with subscription boost
Crain’s Manchester has reached the grand old age of 1 and to celebrate publisher Arthur Porter had a chat with How-Do.

He has plans to treble subscribers and says the print edition will continue, even in today’s climate.

"It has been a good year," said Porter. "We’ve hit our targets. In our business plan, produced before the recession, we aimed for 1000 subscribers and we’ve managed that in less than a year."

In fact, the economic slow-down may have even helped circulation - in addition to subscriptions, they sell 220 copies over the counter every week and circulate 7000 emails a day.

"The feedback we get from people reading Crain’s is that the information is crucial to them and for the top executives it’s become mandatory reading."

When asked about ad rates, which have long been a bone of contention on How-Do’s messageboards, Porter told us:

Crains celebrates 1st birthday with subscription boost
Porter
"We did reduce our ad rates to become more affordable and that has paid off. But the first year was all about building our reputation, no-one was doing what we are now doing and the advertisers are coming in."

With regular stories about the death of print, Crain’s is not (at the moment at least) looking to leave the paper behind.

"As far as I know, the paper will remain. Anyone can post articles online, a paper has to have exclusives."

How-Do chose not to rise to that!

So what are the highlights 12 months down the line?

"Actually, it’s probably Virgin giving Crain’s out free to first class passengers. We’re the only regional title they do this with."

As for 2009, Porter is already recruiting sales people and is aiming for 2000 subscribers and an all-subscription model. Although he added:

"If I were to place a bet, I think we’ll have 3000 subscribers next year."

 

 

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  Comments (16)
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 1 By MEN cynic, on 19-12-2008 10:18
Good for Crain's and understandably Porter is chipper...but he's also held back some info form you How-Do. It's obviosuly slipped his attention that Crain's has just let 50 plus journos go back home Stateside and annoucned the closure of its flagship print title Financial Week. With the Mcr title's current ratio of 7 Es to 1 print...if I were Crain's UK printer, I'd be watching developments Stateside too.... 
 
Good luck to all in the coming year.
 2 By outsider, on 19-12-2008 10:32
Crain's were boasting about having 1,000 paid subscribers months ago so it looks like new subs have dried up and/or existing subs are not renewing.  
 
So not really so much to celebrate other than survival and 3,000 is a silly target for next year considering it is a Manchester focused title and there are only so many PR people who are willing to pay to subscribe to check they have got their story published. 
 
The best thing Crain's could do is widen the scope to the North West and make subscription free, then focus on a producing a good ABC audited demographic analysis of readers. Or do the Which Magazine thing of a free trial subscription that turns into a real one if you don't cancel.  
 
Anyone considering paying to advertise in something with only 1,000 readers should seek medical attention at the Alex. Any publisher who tells their sales team that they can only sell on top dollar (still is at the discounted rate) with such a low subscriber base should watch Scrooge.
 3 By Tom Hagen website, on 19-12-2008 11:19
"As far as I know, the paper will remain. Anyone can post articles online, a paper has to have exclusives." 
 
Indeed, but what prohibits print media is the time it takes to print something and distribute it. A blog or a website only requires a "publish" button and then it can be distributed to potentially thousands of people via email or RSS in seconds.
 4 By Citizen Kane, on 19-12-2008 11:23
Can only agree with outsider - it would probably be more cost effective to phone or visit the hopelessly small number of subscribers one by one and tell them the day's news over coffee. When will these people get it through their heads that this is a very small watering hole and the big beasts have got it taped already. There are no strategies left to be discovered. The ones on the shelf are there for a good reason.
 5 By MEN cynic, on 19-12-2008 12:01
Outsider/Citizen kane...calm down. 
 
Think you'll find Crain's mails out a further 15,000 or so copies every week
 6 By very old hack, on 19-12-2008 15:55
I get a freebie most weeks. It is just the right size to line the cat litter tray.
 7 By Can't find him?, on 19-12-2008 14:06
Where's Logged Off when you need him hey?
 8 By outsider, on 19-12-2008 15:54
Men cynic, I know about the 14,000 non-requested circulation. If the publisher doesn't even mention this element of print run, why should I? It obviously has very little value. 
The publisher can't mention it because they want to grab tghe subscription fee and the subscribers should be rightly annoyed that they are the small minority not considered worthy of a free copy. Catch 22 for the publisher so they should bin the sub fee today.
 9 By Loggedoff, on 19-12-2008 15:53
Nice to be missed. 
 
Sorry 'Can't find him', how-do sometimes censor me if I post too often, so I donned a temporary disguise aka 'outsider'. 
 
Truth is I would like Crain's to survive as I am sure we all would, but can't see how they can do it with the status quo. Sometimes the best thing to do is admit you are wrong and try another approach.
 10 By santa, on 21-12-2008 12:12
1,000 subs in this climate ain't bad going - thats a lot of people who must be finding something useful in Crain's, otherwise they'd save their pennies.
 11 By fed up with cynics, on 21-12-2008 12:13
Loggedoff - what's wrong with Crains? 1000 subs and the very best business info and intel of any pub in the area. It's hard to find a someone in business who doesn't like Crains. Big achievement in one year - well done.
 12 By Loggedoff, on 22-12-2008 12:35
Actually the print run is 30% lower than Crain's promised a year ago and the paid subs over 60% lower than planned. But well done anyway Crain's for surviving. 
 
It seems a good publication and I wish it well (always have), however, it is fundamentally flawed in its strategy.  
 
How Do readers know Crain's reads and respond to this board and it will do no harm to explain where they can improve. 
1,000 subs is not sustainable and more importantly it has not increased recently - ergo paid subs are going nowhere fast for this title. 
 
The truth will be told if they complete the promised ABC audit but we may have to wait a year for this and there is no gaurantee it will happen. 
 
After all Crain's have already made 6,000 of the promised print run dissapear.
 13 By MEN cynic, on 23-12-2008 12:54
Check out the latest house ad in Crains...from a Don Jamison of some LE-AL Associates (whoever they are!)...."As you know ewe receive bin loads of mags each month....thank god you have not yet filled your pages with pix of happy smiling business men and women at this party or that dance or the ultimate photo opp. No Cheshire Life lool alike for your guys and girls". And talking of Insider, given 70% of its revenue is from said market - previously smiling property agents and professionals, what will 09 bring? Wait for monthly education specials and even more advertorial round-tables...
 14 By Loggedoff, on 23-12-2008 13:27
Save us from the education specials and advertorial round-tables, please give your advertising budget generously in the new year. 
 
Truth is Insider only has 900 paid subscribers, 900 single copy sales and 1800 controlled free subscribers out of the 17,000 print run. That means over 13,000 copies sent to people who don't want it.* At least Crain's has the excuse it has only been going a year. 
 
* There is an odd 3,000 bulk sales figure in Insiders ABC audit, however, not sure this represents readers so haven't included.
 15 By MEN cynic, on 23-12-2008 13:34
Think the 3k relates to a deal with Mcr Airport but involves a token amount to enable the figure to read as a bulk purchase. And by token, I mean token... 
 
Re the 900 single copy sales, that figure is also not entirely wiothout some economical definition of 'paid'... 
 
Re the 13k "who don't want it" - think however that's wide of the mark Loggedoff but after almost 20 years of publishing in the N/W, you would have thought more than 3,000 or so people would want to buy or actually request the title. 
 
You can see why Arthur Porter is so cock-a-hoop - Insider's essentially vanity publishing format is well past its sell-by and the MEN no longer feels as threatened by Crains...now Arthur just needs to pray that Detroit holds its nerve... 

 16 By Loggedoff, on 23-12-2008 19:59
I note from the ABC website that Insider's last audit was amended and an audit report was issued on 3rd Dec stating '2,226 copies have been transferred from Company Written Requests to Company Telephone Requests.' 
 
Whether telephone or written requests they are pretty low value to advertisers as no individual reader has requested the title in this category. Bit worrying if they don't know the difference between a telephone call and piece of paper. Company requests can be bulked up by simply banging the telephone and grabbing a PIQ from a receptionist. 
 
I understand why Crain's are cock a hoop, but catching up on a sluggish vanity publisher like Insider doesn't sound very difficult especially if you have deep pockets.

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