Clientize - Folio Study

TRADITIONAL MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS SEE E-NEWSLETTERS
AS IMPORTANT SUPPLEMENT TO PRINT PUBLICATIONS

Clientize-Folio: 500 E-Newsletter Study Finds Ad Click Throughs of 5%
for More Than A Third of Top Magazines

BOCA RATON, FL, APRIL 2, 2001 - E-Newsletters are an increasingly important part of online business strategies at the largest print magazine publishers, new research reported in the April Folio: magazine, the magazine for magazine management, finds. The Clientize-Folio: E-Newsletter Survey, prepared by Clientize, an Internet marketing company serving the publishing industry, found a bright spot in a generally weak publishing market:

Almost half - 41.4% -- of the top consumer and business-to-business magazines as identified by Folio: distribute free E-Newsletters

Ad click-though rates for E-Newsletters are much higher than Web banner ads -- with more than a third of E-Newsletters reporting 5% or higher click-throughs

Revenue generation is a primary goal for trade E-Newsletters. Revenue growth by 2005 is projected to grow up to $1 million annually for some E-Newsletters, with stronger revenues predicted by trade than consumer E-newsletters

Leading industry challenges for the E-Newsletter publisher include content integrity, business model refinement, privacy legislation and cutting through email "clutter."

In its article, "The E-Newsletter Explosion," based on the data, Folio: concluded, "...there is at least one online model that has publishers smiling: e-newsletters."

The Clientize-Folio: E-Newsletter Study looked at the Folio: 500, a list of the top-500 consumer and business-to-business titles ranked by total circulation and advertising revenue.

Print titles participating in the survey represent more than $2.5 billion in 1999 revenue and 31 million print subscribers.

A highlight of the study is data on ad click-throughs. Click-through rates on advertisements of 5% or more were reported by 34% of respondents, with 9% reporting ad click-through rates of 20% or more. Just under half of the respondents (47%) report ad click-through rates of 5% or less.

In another key finding, driving traffic to the website is identified as the leading E-Newsletter business purpose, followed closely by generating ancillary revenue. E-Newsletter publishers are less satisfied with the market results to date in actually generating revenue.

Also closely examined were "permission email" list generation policies. The E-Newsletter sign-up process was evaluated to determine levels of "opt-in" to receive additional magazine information and selected third party offers.

In a supplemental portion of the survey, eMarketing services company Impower, Inc. assigned "eScores" to the opt-in process where applicable. Using a scale of 1-9, with 1 being the ideal opt-in and 9 being spam, 43% of E-Newsletters that request "permission" rated 1 or 2 for their opt-in process, 53% rated 3 or 4 for using an opt-out process and 5% rated an 8.

In a generally bleak publishing climate with declining circulations, rising costs and weak demand from advertisers, we found E-Newsletters are an important new source of growth," said Margaret Grisdela, President & CEO, Clientize. Our study supports further industry expansion by providing a much fuller understanding of content, advertising, technology and marketing issues.

Ms. Grisdela and Clientize co-founder Pamela Stein have a combined total of 40 years in electronic publishing, including experience with Standard & Poor's, the F.W. Dodge unit of McGraw-Hill, Thomson Financial and various Internet companies. They conducted the research, using site analysis, telephone interviews and custom online surveys, in February 2001. For complete information about the study and about Clientize visit www.clientize.com. Information about Impower is available at www.impower.com.

Media Contact:
Irina Patterson/Alan Penchansky
The Pen Group
(305) 529-1944
alan@thepengroup.com