SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE THE KEY TO SUCCESS ..
.. but very few Thai publishers have the same ideas and business models as their Western counterparts. Take BBC Magazines for example. Last week they announced a massive promotion to counter falling news stand sales in the UK. Subscribers can now get up to 50 per cent off the cover price when signing up for an annual subscription. Titles benefiting from that promotion include Top Gear, Radio Times, BBC Good Food, etc.
Very few Thai publishers discount their subscriptions to anything like those levels. The average discount from cover price seems to be in the 15-20% range. Personally I've not seen any Thai magazine offering more than 30% discount on a regular basis.
And then there's those premiums, gifts to you and me. Subscribers want the premium, even though for a publisher it means a cost that could instead be passed to the subscriber. Whether it's a pen, a key chain or a USB, they want them and they're not happy without them.
I think one reason for the lack of deeply discounted subscriptions could be the low margins. A magazine with a cover price of 100 baht could quite easily cost 40 baht or more to print, and that's without all the other associated production costs. Smaller publishers probably don't consider the extra value their subscribers can provide, such as cross marketing, demographically information, etc.
3 comments:
Another problem with subscriptions is the lack of trust in the Thai postal system.
Yes, the post is a problem but also Thai people are more reluctant to pay for things in advance - even with a reasonable discount.
I wonder if that would change with increasing income? Or is it just that the culture breeds mistrust? I never thought about opening a box in a store, plugging in an appliance and making sure it worked, until I lived in Thailand for a couple months. It took my wife a year or so of living in the States before she would believe that what is on the outside of the box is what she will get inside the box.
I suppose the same goes for magazines and newspapers. I loved getting the Post at home, but most of the neighbors would still go buy Thai Rath at the market stall, even though a subscription was cheaper. But one problem was that, while most had 5 baht every day, few had 600 baht for 6 months.
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