Evening all
hope you've all managed to tee it up at some point this weekend and have an enjoyable few hours golfing.
I just wanted to follow up on a couple of recent posts - Toon Army's subscription related one and Big Slice's one re the Bunkered free rounds subscription offer.
GM subscription offer
I have responded on gifts for first time subscribers a few times before but always happy to clarify the position, as I know it does cause some confusion.
Our subscription model is same as used in many businesses that run on repeat purchase. Be it insurance, gym membership, Sky/Cable TV etc where new customers are encouraged to sign-up with a special offer.
Where we probably differ from other repeat businesses is that we DO then reward loyalty by offering a special reduced price (roughly 20% on the RRP) to subscribers who renew after year 1.
However, as a business we could not afford to automatically offer give everyone a dozen Z Stars, or repeat the big (up to 50%) introductory discount, every time they renewed. GM has around 27,000 subscribers, to be giving away a significant gift or massive discount to each and everyone would send us bust pretty quickly.
The thing is Toon Army, at the point you took out your first subscription to GM, you will have benefited from an great introductory offer (be it free golf balls, another gift or a big reduction on the RRP), so it’s not as if you didn’t get a good incentive and are then forced to look at others getting a great deal.
As Toon Army said, the reality is that if you can be bothered to make the effort you could decide not to not renew your current subscription and then take out a new one thereby benefiting from the current new subscriber offer.
My view is that expecting to get a dozen premium balls or a discount over and above 20% off the cover price every time you renew your subscription is simply unrealistic.
I guess the bottom line is that if you don't feel that getting circa 20% discount off the single issue price, the magazine delivered to your door before it goes on general sale, the limited edition subscriber only front covers and subscriber only competitions and/or offers represents a good package then we, as a business, can't match your expectations as a customer. The end result is that you won’t renew.
At the end of the day, our ability to retain subscribers can't be based on just giving stuff away. It has to be based on all the reasons mentioned above plus, and most importantly from my perspective, that we produce a golf mag that entertains and informs its readers. I
Bunkered subscription offer
I’d certainly agree that a free round on the Kintyre and The Dukes is a v nice gift but I juts don’t think it wouldn’t be possible for GM to do something like this. Why? Two main reasons…
Geography.
Bunkered have partnered with courses either side of Scotland that at least one of which is (I warn this is finger in the air stuff) reachable in under 2 hours by the vast majority of folk take out the subscription offer as Bunkered is 100% aimed at the Scottish market and I can’t think bar a few expats they have many subscribers outside of Scotland.
By contrast GM have subscribers all over GB&I, Europe and indeed the world. We can make it a GB&I only offer as we do quite often but to keep every ‘home golfer’ happy we’d have to negotiate deals certainly all around GB&I in order to not make it exclusive.
Can you imagine how hacked off all the Welsh boys would be if we did a similar offer… but it was only for courses in England, Scotland and Ireland because we couldn’t get a partner in Wales.
To make sure we have a golf offer that is relevant to all our GB&I readers is that twice a year we give away a free GreenFree 2 for 1 vouchers that are valid at over 1000 courses in GB&I. If you subscribe you’ll get both of these. Use both of them and you’ve got the equivalent of a free round!
The next one is being given away FREE with the next issue of GM (November coverdate which will be on sale early next month)
Limited exposure
Imurg summed this up v succinctly. The potential take up on a similar offer in GM could be massive and as such very difficult for us to organise. Although Bunkered don’t publish audited circulation figures we estimate them to be around 10,000 a month. We have 60,000. That’s 6 times the risk for any potential partner. I don’t think there would be a lot of courses keen to expose themselves to potentially that many free rounds of golf.
Hope the above helps explain why things as they are.
Any more queries fire away!
hope you've all managed to tee it up at some point this weekend and have an enjoyable few hours golfing.
I just wanted to follow up on a couple of recent posts - Toon Army's subscription related one and Big Slice's one re the Bunkered free rounds subscription offer.
GM subscription offer
I have responded on gifts for first time subscribers a few times before but always happy to clarify the position, as I know it does cause some confusion.
Our subscription model is same as used in many businesses that run on repeat purchase. Be it insurance, gym membership, Sky/Cable TV etc where new customers are encouraged to sign-up with a special offer.
Where we probably differ from other repeat businesses is that we DO then reward loyalty by offering a special reduced price (roughly 20% on the RRP) to subscribers who renew after year 1.
However, as a business we could not afford to automatically offer give everyone a dozen Z Stars, or repeat the big (up to 50%) introductory discount, every time they renewed. GM has around 27,000 subscribers, to be giving away a significant gift or massive discount to each and everyone would send us bust pretty quickly.
The thing is Toon Army, at the point you took out your first subscription to GM, you will have benefited from an great introductory offer (be it free golf balls, another gift or a big reduction on the RRP), so it’s not as if you didn’t get a good incentive and are then forced to look at others getting a great deal.
As Toon Army said, the reality is that if you can be bothered to make the effort you could decide not to not renew your current subscription and then take out a new one thereby benefiting from the current new subscriber offer.
My view is that expecting to get a dozen premium balls or a discount over and above 20% off the cover price every time you renew your subscription is simply unrealistic.
I guess the bottom line is that if you don't feel that getting circa 20% discount off the single issue price, the magazine delivered to your door before it goes on general sale, the limited edition subscriber only front covers and subscriber only competitions and/or offers represents a good package then we, as a business, can't match your expectations as a customer. The end result is that you won’t renew.
At the end of the day, our ability to retain subscribers can't be based on just giving stuff away. It has to be based on all the reasons mentioned above plus, and most importantly from my perspective, that we produce a golf mag that entertains and informs its readers. I
Bunkered subscription offer
I’d certainly agree that a free round on the Kintyre and The Dukes is a v nice gift but I juts don’t think it wouldn’t be possible for GM to do something like this. Why? Two main reasons…
Geography.
Bunkered have partnered with courses either side of Scotland that at least one of which is (I warn this is finger in the air stuff) reachable in under 2 hours by the vast majority of folk take out the subscription offer as Bunkered is 100% aimed at the Scottish market and I can’t think bar a few expats they have many subscribers outside of Scotland.
By contrast GM have subscribers all over GB&I, Europe and indeed the world. We can make it a GB&I only offer as we do quite often but to keep every ‘home golfer’ happy we’d have to negotiate deals certainly all around GB&I in order to not make it exclusive.
Can you imagine how hacked off all the Welsh boys would be if we did a similar offer… but it was only for courses in England, Scotland and Ireland because we couldn’t get a partner in Wales.
To make sure we have a golf offer that is relevant to all our GB&I readers is that twice a year we give away a free GreenFree 2 for 1 vouchers that are valid at over 1000 courses in GB&I. If you subscribe you’ll get both of these. Use both of them and you’ve got the equivalent of a free round!
The next one is being given away FREE with the next issue of GM (November coverdate which will be on sale early next month)
Limited exposure
Imurg summed this up v succinctly. The potential take up on a similar offer in GM could be massive and as such very difficult for us to organise. Although Bunkered don’t publish audited circulation figures we estimate them to be around 10,000 a month. We have 60,000. That’s 6 times the risk for any potential partner. I don’t think there would be a lot of courses keen to expose themselves to potentially that many free rounds of golf.
Hope the above helps explain why things as they are.
Any more queries fire away!
and i can see why the other mag are giving free golf promotion.
only thing is i havent had my subscribers gift? at the time of ordering the subscription i think the offer was 12 srixon z stars... my question is does this take longer to arrive? or have i just not got them by mistake or something? a reason would be aprreciated 
