Twelve proven newsletter renewal techniques, part 2. (Renewals).

Last issue David R. Yale laid out six proven techniques that will boost response to your renewal series--strategies based on results. "They work." "Here are Yak's remaining six techniques.--Ed.

The seventh proven strategy is to offer premiums and incentives in your renewal packages. I'll bet most of you are doing this, but ... have you tried more than one premium at a time? And are you positive that editorial premiums out-pull gift premiums to your target audience? It's worth testing.

The eighth success strategy is closely related to the seventh: Offer multiple-year discounts of five percent to ten percent. Not only does this raise your average unit of sale, and cut your cost per renewal, but it helps lock in your subscribers for longer periods.

While two-year renewals are nice, there's something even better: subscriptions that don't expire. No, that's not the impossible dream. You do this by giving subscribers an incentive to sign on for automatic renewal, where they give you authorization to bill their credit cards until forbid.

That's success strategy number nine. It works for newsletter publishers, and it works for magazines, as well.

In fact, two years ago, Time Inc. already had "... 20 percent of its total subscriptions sold on continuous service and aimed to have upwards of 40 percent by 2003," says Monika Winn, vice president, customer marketing, quoted in Folio:. "The cost savings are enormous.... Time Inc. estimates that a full-scale rollout of continuous service across all titles could mean a $50 million to $70 million improvement to its bottom line."

Now, bottom line numbers like that are nice, even if your publication has a much smaller circulation, and your savings are just a fraction of Time Inc.'s. But that's not the only reason to offer subscribers continuous service. You can also use it as a tool to cut customer complaints.

"When customers complain about receiving renewal notices too early or too frequently, we feel that the best solution for them is to upsell them to continuous service," says David Cobb, associate circulation director at PC World. "It's an easy way to satisfy a subscriber complaint while actually building the relationship with them," according to an article in Folio: magazine.

When you promote continuous service, be sure to "Offer a clear explanation. One of the most critical elements in getting a customer to sign on to continuous service ... is a clear explanation of the program's concept and terms. Fearful of creating another debacle like the one shrouding sweepstakes in recent years, publishers are taking pains to present honest, straightforward language from the get-go," according to Folio:.

The tenth success strategy is to vary your creative from effort to effort, so the series isn't predictable. This helps avoid "tossing upon recognition," where the recipient figures out what's inside your envelope, and in one quick and continuous move from the pile of mail to the waste basket, seals your fate.

There are two schools of thought about this. On the one hand, direct response copywriter and consultant David Rosen says, "After the third effort, remove the publisher's name from the outer envelope," according to Inside Direct Mail.

On the other hand, copywriter Mark Johnson says, "In general, just as an invoice should look like an invoice, a renewal should look like a renewal. A renewal is a customer service notice and should look like one.... I typically put the words 'renewal notice' on renewal envelopes."

This is a good idea at several specific points in your renewal series, especially since Johnson has seen test data that show the words "renewal notice" on renewal envelopes boost response:

* Once, early in the series, when you're targeting the ready-and-willing in the "skimming the cream" phase.

* Again, later in the series, once in the "great deal" phase and again in "what happened" phase.

Be sure that you have at least one effort in each phase where the outer envelope does not reveal what the contents are.

If a sizable portion of your renewals are on a "bill me" basis, view your billing series as a marketing campaign, according to success strategy number eleven. This means you should vary the creative from one effort to the next, use a mix of marketing channels, add efforts to your billing series until you reach break-even, offer premiums and incentives upon payment, offer multi-year discounts, let subscribers pay their invoices at your website, and offer incentives for subscribers who sign on for continuous service.

Finally, success strategy number twelve calls for you to extend your renewal series to include expires, and mail to them on a regular basis, until you reach break-even.

A few more renewal tips

In addition to these proven strategies, I'd like to offer a few more renewal tips that are based on years of direct marketing experience--my own and others'.

Always take a positive stance in your renewal copy. Use phrases like "When you renew," not "If you renew."

If your publication is improving its content to better match the current concerns of subscribers, be sure to highlight these changes in your renewal copy.

Ask your customer services reps to list the five most common complaints about the content of your publication. Then address those complaints in your renewal copy. Every good sales rep addresses and answers propects' objections. Since your renewals are functioning like sales reps, they should answer objections, as well.

Whenever you can, show subscribers graphically what their savings are. "A price chart that maps out savings for renewing early or taking multiple terms helps lift response," says Joyce Swingle, Business Week's consumer marketing director, quoted in Inside Direct Mail.

Finally, I'd like to offer a solution to a common renewals dilemma for newsletters with smaller circulations where the renewal numbers are so small that it's hard to test renewal creative: Look at all the efforts in your series and see which efforts are most profitable. Then, do two things:

* Ask yourself if the most profitable effort can be shifted to the beginning of the series.

* Replace the worst-performing efforts with new creative, and see if that boosts response.

Just a five percent increase in renewal rates could increase the value of your company by 150 percent, according to a model constructed by Julian Turner, head of Electric Word plc, publisher of more than a dozen newsletters. If you apply these twelve proven renewals success strategies, that five percent could be within your reach.

David R. Yale, Direct Marketer is a freelance creative consultant and copywriter based in Bayside. New York. He has served as a senior copywriter at Publishers Clearing House and as vice president of marketing at Marketing & Publishing Associates, a financial newsletter publisher. His clients include Forbes, Clement Communications, and Hideaway Report. You can see his portfolio at www.controlbeaters.com or reach him at [e-mail].