Reconciling the capabilities of legacy fulfillment systems with the needs of digital subscribers can be difficult. Here are some examples of how they can clash.
Consider the simplest of simple scenarios. Someone subscribes to a print magazine for a calendar year — January to December. To make the example really simple, let’s assume the print labels run on the first day of the month for that month. The last label pull will be on December 1 for the December issue. After that, the subscription will be marked as expired. If your online entitlement system goes by “active” vs. “expired” in the fulfillment system, the subscriber will lose access on December 2 even though you want to provide digital access until Dec. 31.
This can also have implications for renewals. If a renewal is charged on December 1 — which makes some sense in the print world — the digital subscriber will fear he’s being cheated out of a month of access.
Similar timing problems happen on the front end of the subscription. If the customer purchases the subscription on December 2, the next available print issue is (at best) January, which means he won’t have access until then, which is also unacceptable to the customer.
Some systems maintain a current status (active or expired) while others grant access based on specific issues. That can be a good thing. If I buy access to the January issue, I feel as if I should have that access forever. There can also be a negative side. If you want to give digital subscribers access to the archives, issue-specific access can cause problems.
Legacy systems were built at a time when subscribing today and not getting your first issue for two months was acceptable. (Was it really?) Today, people expect immediate access. (By the way, this doesn’t only apply to digital access. I can buy a new phone charger on Amazon and have it delivered tomorrow, or even this afternoon. Why can’t I get a print magazine tomorrow?)
Another problem is pass-along readership, which is the idea that for every print magazine you mail, 2.5 to 3 times that number of people read it. At least that’s the story the people who sell advertisements want us to believe. It’s based on the assumption that if I subscribe to a magazine, everyone in my house can read it. To implement something similar on the digital side, you’d have to allow multiple online credentials for each account. Most systems can’t do that.
Most fulfillment companies have figured out workarounds for some of these types of problems, but they’re not always ideal, and sometimes you need to figure out your own path forward.
If you’re wondering about upgrading or changing your fulfillment service, I have a fulfillment services checklist you might find useful. Contact me and I’ll send you a copy.
