Data from the unique study reveals that one in six new subscribers are recruited in the month of December, reflecting the popularity of magazines as a Christmas gift. It also showed that the acquisition of new magazine subscribers has been growing year-on-year since 2006 despite challenging trading conditions.
The findings are taken from a new PPA research project entitled The UK Subscriptions Market – A Single Customer View. In an industry first, the project pools data from the UK’s leading consumer magazine publishers to provide a single, sector-wide view of UK magazine subscribers.
The research, sponsored by Royal Mail and carried out in association with Datalytics and Wessenden Marketing, draws on 30m subscriber records across 196 magazine titles from Bauer, BBC, Condé Nast, Dennis, Future, Hachette, Haymarket, IPC Media and the National Magazine Company, which together comprise 60 per cent of the UK ABC subscriptions market.
Nicola Rowe (pictured), Director of Circulation & Member Services at the PPA, said: “This truly is a groundbreaking piece of research. It’s the first time that publishers have collaborated in this way in order to get a view of the UK subscriptions market as a whole. We hope that this project will build year on year, with more publishers taking part and providing further insight into the industry.”
Stuart Broughton, Managing Partner at Datalytics, added: “We were delighted to be selected by the PPA to carry out this piece of analysis for the publishing industry. By commissioning this piece of analysis, the PPA has provided the publishing industry with its first ever industry benchmarks. Publishers can for the first time see if they are punching above or below their weight in key business areas such as customer acquisition and customer retention.”
The full results of the project are now available for PPA members to download from the PPA website. An overview of the initial findings were originally presented at the PPA’s Customer Direct conference at The Brewery, London on November 10.
About PPA
The PPA says: “The Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) protects and promotes the interests of print and online publishers of consumer and business media in the UK. The PPA has around 200 publishing companies in its membership, which collectively produce more than 2,500 consumer and business magazines and journals as well as digital media, data products and events.”
