Welcome to Next Step Marketing News & Notes. Summer is coming and it's time to prepare for your Gift Mailing. Always looking for what's working for circulators out there, we tapped Barbara Besser, Group Circ Director of BackPacker and Yoga Journal--a title with a super strong and growing gift file--to provide us with her Top 10 Gift Ideas.

We also focus on recent postal rate increases, and our recommendations for your future budgeting. If you need any help dealing with these changes or help with circulation in general please contact me at 415.773.2044 or at maire@nextstepsmarketing.com

Sincerely,

Máire P. Walsh, Client Services Director

2008 Industry Calendar
	PBAA, June 22-24, Baltimore, MD www.pbaa.net
	Circ Management, June 23-25, Chicago www.circmanshow.com
	Folio: Show, Sept 22-24, Chicago www.foliomag.com/show08
	Circ Day LA, October 2, Los Angeles
	American Magazine Conference, Oct 5-7, San Francisco www.magazine.org
	Distipress, October 26-28, Istanbul www.distripress.ch
	WIPP Women's Leadership Conference, Jan 23, San Francisco www.wipp.net

Barbara Besser's Top 10 Gift Renewal Lifelines

Donor Renewal
1. Consider adding one more effort.
2. Mailing standard vs. first class.
3. Do you need a letter as well as a form?
4. Can you add a telemarketing effort at the end of the series?

Cold Mail
1. Review selection of sources, consider adding or removing sources.
2. Offer: Give 2 gifts vs. renewal yourself plus gift.
3. Consider second effort.

Other
1. Review how many efforts sent to unrenewed recipients.
2. Add gift email blasts.
3. Upsell gifts in customer service call.

Focus Feature: Postal Hikes

On Monday, May 12, the USPS increased the periodicals postal rate by 2.7%. While this was an expected hike, it nonetheless provides yet another challenge to print circulators in an increasingly paperless publishing industry.

Though much less drastic than the hikes of 2007--about 11%--this increase was inevitable, says the USPS. Because postal operations are not subsidized by tax dollars, USPS must rely on the sale of postal products to cover its operating costs. Why another increase so soon, though? According to USPS' MailPro magazine, "The new postal law calls for predictable price changes and includes a mechanism for mailing services prices to increase at the rate of inflation each year as measured by the Consumer Price Index. Rather than larger increases every several years, the new process will provide smaller, more predictable price changes."

The latest hike is the first under the USPS' Postal Accountablility and Enhancement Act--an act that ensures that prices for mailing services will be adjusted annually each May from here on out. Publishers will recieve 90 days' notice before the price changes each year.

Next Steps Recommends...To be safe and to guard against a high-inflation year, budget a 5 % increase in postage in your upcoming year's budget. Start that increase at the beginning of May

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