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Click here In This Issue: Group Subscription Management--Done Right ESP Helps BNP Media to Stay Cool ESP Helps Rangefinder Put Fulfillment Into Focus Industry Events CircDayLA Thursday, Sept. 15 FMA Day FMA Luncheon WFMA Dinner Meeting ESP Computer Services Inc. 12444 Victory Blvd., Suite 400 Feel Free to Share! For more information about our services, go to
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Here at ESP we’ve been servicing publications with group subscribers since our inception. Twenty-three years later we are continuing to improve our processes in handling these special subscribers. After all, these are the people who subscribe to your magazine, buy your advertising, and are often the subject of the articles. For those of you who don’t have much experience with groups, perhaps a quick explanation is in order. A group is a collection of subscriptions that are purchased and managed by a group administrator. Rather than have each subscriber deal with the billing and management of an account, there is a group administrative contact that negotiates the rates and serves as the gatekeeper for those who get subscriptions. A good example would be a music studio, say Rhino Records, which subscribes to Billboard magazine. Rhino Records buys its subscriptions in bulk as a "group." It has an administrative contact that will negotiate the subscription price and apply changes to the list. There are several benefits to setting up a group subscriptions—they allow for a better price, and control of subscriptions. Since some subscriptions can be several hundred dollars a year, this can be a fairly large expense that companies want to manage. As you can imagine, management of the individual subscribers in a group could be a cumbersome process. You couldn’t allow a subscriber to access his subscription record directly because he could cancel it and get a refund, or leave the company and change the address of the subscription. The company views these subscriptions as their assets and wants to manage them. To make changes, group subs have to contact their group administrator who in turn would contact the fulfillment house to make any changes. This would involve up to three or more people to do an address change—not a timely or efficient process for any of the parties involved. There had to be a better way to manage groups, and there was. ESP worked together with VNU and took on the challenge of group administration for Billboard magazine. Our new Web-based group management feature is the latest evolution in the handling of these accounts. The Web site allows group administrators to conveniently self-manage their groups without involving the publisher or the fulfillment house. To help the group administrators do their jobs, we provided them with a system that allowed them to manage their subscribers.. Information is available in real-time and changes are effective immediately. Group administrators are able to add subscribers, change name and address information, renew subs and pay for individual subscribers. Using the system is straightforward and easy to learn. Group administrators log in and can select from one of many pubs that they have access to. In our example, the group administrator for Rhino Records can select from any of the publications that we fulfill. Once they have selected the publication, they can then choose a group within the publication to administer. From there they can either add a new subscriber or view a list of subscribers. Below is a sample page showing the subscribers for a group. From this page the group administrator can select an account to change the address, pay an amount due or renew a subscriber with a credit card. No longer will they call someone, and wait for them. It’s faster for group administrators to do it for themselves. Everyone wins.
A nice feature is the ability to download the group list into Excel or as a zip file. This allows the group administrator to be able to sort and export their data using a tool that almost all office workers are familiar with.
Another nice feature is the ability to generate an invoice for an individual subscriber or for all accounts with an amount due. The invoice is prepared and shown on the page for the administrator to review. The administrator then has the choice to print the invoice or e-mail it to the subscriber. The subscriber will then have to remit the invoice back to the group administrator or send it in directly to ESP for processing. That’s most of the features. If you wish to review all the features, a group administrator user manual is available from the documentation sub menu on ESPonDemand. If you’d like to start using this new feature, please contact your account executive to setup your group accounts. In almost no time at all you’ll have a great new tool that will keep you and your subscribers happy.
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