http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2019/04/54-how-wall-street-journal-took-me-to.html
Posted by Denny Hatch
How The Wall Street Journal Took Me to the Cleaners
“Your WSJ Digital Package is about to renew.”
What the hell kind of lede is that?
Digital Package????
Gee, I thought I was a savvy subscriber to the world’s premier financial publication that would enhance my career, teach me about money and investing and guide me to a safe harbor in retirement.
The circulation dweebs at The Journal are telling me what I’m really going to miss is my “Digital Package.”
The Importance of the Signature
It was freelancer Malcolm
Decker who wrote: “On a letter, your signature is your handshake.”Here’s how the Journal circulation people signed off:
Regards,
WSJ Customer service.
Golly, as a longtime member of the WSJ family, don’t I rate letter from a real person—maybe a VP of circulation or something?
It doesn’t need to be a real signature. But just the name of somebody—an actual, real live person at The Journal—who cares about me?
For example:
“The Most Successful Advertisement
In the History of the World”
That’s what I called Martin Conroy’s 1974 “Two
Young Men…” letter that brought in $2 billion+ in circulation revenue to The
Wall Street Journal for over more than a quarter century. Here’s is Conroy’s closing paragraph:
Could WSJ Customer service have written that letter? Or stood behind the guarantee of interesting, reliable and always useful? Quite simply, the real name of a real person signing a letter counts big time in terms of believability and trust. The name of someone I could complain to if I had a problem rather than the nameless, faceless, inhuman WSJ Customer service.
Two weeks ago, when I was hit with the cold, perfunctory renewal effort you see at the top of this post, I thought: “Okay, I’ll renew.”
I clicked where I was told, and here’s what came up:
OMG! A Nasty Surprise!
WSJ's real message to me
was two parts: • (1) “Hey, Denny, we sneakily up our prices 5% every 9 months!
• (2) “Up yours!”
• Lord knows when—and how little—I was paying when I first subscribed.
• Under the “Auto-renewal” system, I never saw a bill or a beautifully crafted renewal effort. Just a charge in mouse type amidst dozens of others on a monthly VISA bill.
• At what point in the future would the Journal up me into paying $1,000 a month?
• How much was I costing The Wall Street Journal? Not ink. Not paper. Not printing. Not folding. And not delivery.
• This was an annual $467.88 fee for teeny nano-spritzes of electricity.
• With 50+ years in direct marketing, I am acutely aware of product pricing, cost-of-goods sold and allowable order costs.
• WSJ is operating on a 100-million-times mark-up.
Is The Wall Street Journal worth it? Nah!
When I saw what I was
paying, I reassessed my intercourse with WSJ. Okay, my sad-sack insecure ego liked receiving it.
I felt I was getting inside information, just like the big kahunas on Wall Street, in corporate corner offices and on room service breakfast trays at Mar-a-Lago.
Intense Media Competition for My Attention
I no longer read print
newspapers. They are cumbersome and physically messy. They destroy forests.
Type is tiny and I have always had lousy eyesight. Every morning online I skim/scan/read the juiciest items in Apple News, The New York Times, Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Wall Street Journal sucks hind tit with its also-ran coverage of world affairs, politics, stories of rich people’s mansions, wardrobes, transportation, food and amusements.
Maybe once a week I’d click on a story.
Quite frankly, my reading list—plus TV addiction (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN)—enable me to keep up with the catastrophic conditions of city, state, country and world as well as the deluge of dysfunctional, duplicitous douchebags destroying the planet.
WSJ, I want to be romanced!
For 30 years as a direct
response copywriter my client base was made up mainly of magazine and
newsletter publishers. I was proud to know them and privileged to get inside
the heads of editors, readers and prospects to help make everybody’s lives
better.Many copywriters hated the tedious work of creating renewal and billing efforts; I found them a delicious challenge—reprising the benefits of a familiar old gigolo and making him seem young, vibrant and sexy again.
My wife, Peggy, is a true master of renewals and billing efforts. She loves them!
So when I changed credit cards—and the “Auto-renew” business model fizzled out—WSJ’s circulation creeps were forced to lurch into action.
Alas, they had nothing in their arsenal to persuade me to renew beyond the threat of being cut off from the “WSJ digital package.”
If You Want My $467.88 a Year
You Damn Well Re-sell Me!
• How many reporters do you have working for me in how many countries?• Make me feel like a member of your family of star journalists and Op-Editors—a real insider!
• What were the breakthrough stories and personality profiles you brought me over that past year?
• Pound into my brain the splendid benefits and exclusive features I can’t get elsewhere!
• How about offering me a digital cookbook or special reports as a “thank-you” for renewing?” Maybe a WSJ tote bag or coffee mug?
• What are WSJ's plans for the coming year and how will you change my life for the better?
• Scare the hell out of me that if I do not renew, I will be woefully unprepared for coming financial Armageddon and will become a bag-person on the streets!
• Quite simply, WSJ folks, I don’t like you and I don’t need you.
• You have been picking my pocket for years and you spoke to me with all the charm, warmth and enthusiasm of HAL, the computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
Bye-bye, boneheads!
Takeaways to Consider
• No marketer should
allow ham-handed circulation clerks, lawyers, bean counters and programmers to
directly interact with customers, prospects and employees.• I strongly suggest every person running a business put a world-class copywriter on retainer—a sensitive and literate pro that can work with you on sales and promotion messages. Additional duties: help make sure all your internal and external communications—from the executive suite to the mailroom—are doing their intended jobs.
• The real name of a real person signing a letter counts big time in terms of believability and trust—the name of someone I could complain to if I had a problem rather than the nameless, faceless, inhuman "WSJ Customer service."
###
Word Count: 1091
CONTACT
You Are Invited to Join the Discussion!
At age 15, Denny Hatch—as a lowly
apprentice—wrote his first news release for a Connecticut summer theater. To
his astonishment it ran verbatim in The Middletown Press. He was
instantly hooked on writing. After a two-year stint in the U.S. Army (1958-60),
Denny had nine jobs in his first 12 years in business. He was fired from five
of them and went on to save two businesses and start three others. One of his
businesses—WHO’S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and archive service
founded in 1984—revolutionized the science of how to measure the success of
competitors’ direct mail. In the past 55 years he has been a book club
director, magazine publisher, advertising copywriter/designer, editor,
journalist and marketing consultant. He is the author of four published novels
and seven books on business and marketing.
CONTACT
dennyhatch@yahoo.com
Note to Readers:
May I send you an alert when each new blog is posted? If so,
kindly give me the okay by sending your First Name, Last Name and e-mail
to dennyhatch@yahoo.com. I guarantee your personal information will not be
shared with anyone at any time for any reason. I look forward to being in
touch!
IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE POSTING
A COMMENT… WRITE ME!
Google owns Blogspot.com and this Comment
Section. If you do not have a Google account, contact me directly and I will happily
post your comment with a note that this is per your request. Thank you and do
keep in touch. dennyhatch@yahoo.com
Invitation to Marketers and Direct Marketers:
Guest Blog Posts Are Welcome.
If you have a marketing story to tell, case
history, concept to propose or a memoir, give a shout. I’ll get right back to
you. I am: dennyhatch@yahoo.com
Denny,
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you noticed or not, but that screenshot of the renewal costs doesn't even spell subscription correctly. LOL
Bill, Thank you, thank you, thank you! Fixed it.
DeleteHi Denny,
ReplyDeleteJust got your blog and as usual very enjoyable read. It reminded me of a situation that I experienced at Meredith when I worked for Success Farming magazine in circulation. My first job out of college. This was 1968 and of course I was the lowest person in the department responsible for taking care of renewal notifications. Anyway, one of my duties was to try to improve responses to our renewal letters so we tested, tested and tested constantly. That’s really how I learned about the power of small details.
We had a series of renewal efforts (I think it was 7) and the number one letter was from the publisher, Wayne Miller. Everyone, including me tried to beat the control but the Wayne Miller letter always won. Usually, by a huge margin.
In those days computer letters were starting to become popular and I thought they would work for us. The problem was the personalization was sometimes rather goofy. For example, a letter to the ABC Hardware would begin Dear Mr. Hardware. I’m sure there of better examples of how stupid they could sound but you get the drift. And maybe you experienced it too.
So, beings a bottom feeder and trying to empress my boss, I decided to try a computer letter. After noodling over the challenge, I came up with what I thought would solve the problem. So, Instead of Dear Mr. Hardware I asked the computer people to change it to: Special Message for ABC Hardware. That was the only personalization in the letter.
Well as you probably have already surmised, I BEAT THE UNBEATABLE WAYNE MILLER LETTER. Frankly, I was surprised it actually won by a large margin. And of course we began using it. Not a small thing when we were mailing to not only farmers but anyone related to farming. Barbershops, feed sellers, tractor dealers, etc. So Dear barbershop would not have gone over as well as Special Message For…
Dick
Thank you, Dick. Great comment. Great story. Learned a lot. Thank you, thank you for sharing. Do keep in touch. Cheers.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYeah Denny, they got greedy! $40/mo for a digital subscription with practically zero incremental fulfillment cost. That's the problem, and even if we could bring Martin Conroy, Malcom Decker AND Bill Jayme back from the dead, their copy wouldn't do anything to solve that. The only way around it is to buy a promo offer and put a note in your calendar to cancel at the time the promo offer expires. That will get your price down to $10-$15 mo.
ReplyDeleteSame thing with Sirius XM satellite radio - their list price is something like $250/yr - auto-renewing annually, but if you call to cancel at time of renewal, they'll cut more than 50% off. It's an annoyance, but you feel like an idiot paying full price.
ReplyDeletePeter, Thank you for taking the time to comment and for two great ideas: (1) Take the promo offer and mark the calendar to cancel before the big bucks kick in and (2)I and all my readers thank you for the heads-up on Sirius XM. Do keep in touch! Cheers.
DeleteThanks for the reminder, Denny. I like the WSJ, but not enough to pay almost $500. per year.
ReplyDeleteI checked my account with them after reading your rant. I received the same shock. My intro rate was long gone. My turn to rant...
I tried to cancel my subscription. Good luck finding the directions at their handy on-line Customer Service Center.
Being an investigator, I finally did find it... oddly buried in their Contact Us section instead of:
My Account
Overview
Account Settings
Manage Subscription(s)
Payment Method(s)
The fun didn't end there. I had to start a Customer Service Chat section. This in reality is a chat with a computerized "chat bot assistant" with a line drawing of a woman next to each answer that pops up.
Finally, after chatting with this answer tree I receive my final answer...
"I am sorry that you want to cancel. I am unable to handle that request but my team can assist. You can cancel by calling 1-800-Journal or Toll: 1-609-514-0870"
So much for a "Customer Service" section.
I called Ms. Bot's "team", while wondering if we are entering the age where the robots are indeed taking over — as was always predicted in science fiction.
The phone call began with me telling my woes to her Team member. Damn, another question tree bot. (you know the drill) Finally, the sound of a weak, distant, downtrodden human voice. Immediately, I can read her mind. "Help me. My headset is on me like a chastity belt. The bots won't let me pee."
Minutes of, "Gee, I can't find your account. My computer is slow today. How about we only sign you up for the Saturday issue? Why do you want to cancel? Is there anything else I can hep you with today?" I hang up.
Off she goes into the ether. I'm free. She isn't. The world is unfair, and the Bunco Bots are coming to get us.
Thank you for saving me more money than the WSJ ever did, Denny.
Kevin, Thank you for taking the time to add a super comment. When I first looked at this thing it smelled funny. The more I looked, the worse it stank. The problem: Ain’t no mentors no more. All the troops are into data and tech stuff and nobody to teach them how to get think like a customer or prospect nor how to communicate gracefully and positively. Do keep in touch!
DeleteHey Denny, Loved the saga. My personal beef has been with Gatehouse Media which has a system of systematically reducing your subscription by up charges for "special issues." A class action lawsuit was found against them but the claims process did not pan out, I'm sure by design. Meanwhile it seems to be BAU for them.
ReplyDeleteIt is exhausting to be bombarded on a daily basis with people trying to rip you off, illegally and legally, commercially and politically.