Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest U.K. has launched a digital push to accelerate e-commerce sales and increase magazine subscriptions. The publisher has appointed twentysix, Digivate and I Spy to build its online presence and ramp up e-commerce revenues for Reader's Digest's books, CDs and DVDs retail arm.

Reiman Publications uses both catalogs and magazines to expertly serve its loyal base of rural consumers. When the editors of Farm Wife News started producing T-shirts with slogans such as, “I’m proud to be a Farm Wife,” for their readers back in the early 1970s, they didn’t know that offshoot merchandise would launch a catalog business. A few years later, Country Store catalog was born, filling a niche in the rural marketplace. Ann Kaiser, managing editor of Taste of Home and editor of Country Woman magazine, was with the company 34 years ago when the catalog concept first was developed at Reiman Publications. She

In the United States, a mature market is the major blockade to finding new names, whereas overseas the challenge is not only finding lists but getting permission to mail to them. Business publication lists, says Stephen Eustace, team leader, international brokerage, at Acxiom/Direct Media in Greenwich, CT, are very good sources of names. The Business Week list, for example, gets used frequently, because 50 percent to 60 percent of the file includes home addresses, an optimal situation for mailing both consumer and business offers. What if you don't want to live by publication lists alone? You'll probably have to go off the beaten

by D. Hatch For occasional marketers, list rental is the main source of income. After serving time for salacious advertising, Ralph Ginzberg, formerly of Eros, started a newsletter called MoneysWorth. A huge part of his business then became gathering the names of literate responders and marketing the list. Recently, Boardroom bought the MoneysWorth name, and it was reborn under Martin Edelston's aegis. Some marketers, including AARP and the American Bible Society, do not allow their lists into commerce at all. For most, however, list rental represents icing on the cake. After all, to generate income, a mailer only needs to switch on a computer