G2 Computer Intelligence Earns a Good Living from Paid Subscribers, Not Advertising Charles Hall is president of G2 Computer Intelligence, a publisher of paid subscription email newsletters. G2 has been in this business since 1989 and has been consistently profitable. G2's current single-reader subscription rate is $595 per year, per newsletter, although many subscriptions are sold to groups or even entire companies at much lower per-reader rates. In March, 2002, while many online publishers were worrying about whether they would survive, G2 launched a new title, Epostal News, covering ecommerce and how it affects national postal authorities, along with coverage of the companies that supply ecommerce software and services to post offices. Within four weeks, the U.S. Postmaster General and other top officials of the United States Postal Service had subscribed, along with executives at other countries' post offices and, said Hall, a surprising number of people from what he calls "the competition," meaning private carriers like UPS, Federal Express, and DHL. EPostal was a spinoff from G2's already-established The Online Reporter, a newsletter that covers ecommerce industry news. Hall said G2 was getting enough interest in and enough stories about ecommerce matters directly related to postal authorities that they felt there was market room for a newsletter that covered nothing else. This move also took post office-specific news out of Online Reporter, and allowed that newsletter to focus purely on ecommerce in private industry. "Focus" is one of Hall's favorite words. Ask him how to duplicate G2's success, and he'll tell you, "Stay focused. Work hard." The first G2 publication, in 1989, was called UniGram. It covered the then hot/new shift in the computer server marketplace from vendor-specific mainframe operating systems to Unix. When Microsoft introduced Windows NT, and it started looking like a potentially viable competitor to Unix, G2 launched Client Server NEWS to focus on Microsoft's attempt to enter the systems and networking market. The Online Reporter was started in 1996 because G2 saw the need for a hard-core "insider scoop" newsletter covering ecommerce. And now EPostal (see Figure 6-2) has spun off from Online Reporter. Hall does not discuss potential future titles, but several are always under consideration. Figure 6-2. The PDF version of EPostal. G2 newsletters are available in text, HTML, and PDF format.
Reporting Is Hard Work Hall says the reason G2 succeeds in selling newsletter subscriptions while other news outlets covering the same market niches have trouble building readership on Web sites that do not charge for their content is that G2 does original, hard core, investigative reporting; that instead of rewriting press releases, G2 reporters are constantly on the phone and exchanging email with direct contacts within companies they write about. "It all boils down to hard work," he says. "And we don't let rookies write reports about the complex topics that they cover. Seasoned industry professionals like Maureen O'Gara, founder and executive editor of G2, work the phones and trade shows and stay in constant contact with industry decision-makers." Asked if others could duplicate G2's journalism success, Hall says, "Sure, if they want to work as hard as we do." Selling Subscriptions Is Hard Work, Too G2 sells subscriptions as aggressively as it reports. Walk into the company's Glen Cove, New York, office at almost any hour during the business day, and you will see at least one or two people busily calling potential subscribers, asking if they would like to receive a free trial subscription to one of G2's newsletters. After the potential subscriber has received free newsletters for three weeks, he or she gets another call. This time he or she is asked to convert to a paid subscription. G2 does not buy contact lists from other publications. It searches business directories for names, and goes to trade shows to collect contact information in person from exhibitors and attendees. The G2 Web site (www.g2news.com) also offers trial subscriptions, but not through an online form. You must email or call. This puts you in direct contact with a G2 subscription representative, and also puts that subscription rep in touch with you so that you can be called and reminded to convert your three-week trial subscription into a paid subscription when the trial ends. This is a well-developed, simple, but very clever sales pattern. Not every prospect buys, but enough do that G2 earns steady profits even in tough economic times. Hall says others could do exactly what G2 does on the sales side, just as they are free to duplicate G2's reporting efforts. But he points out that it takes constant effort to make G2's sales system work, and that G2's success has not come overnight, but has taken years to build. |
