How would your life be if you had 50 thousand PAID subscribers to your publication, subscription services or membership?
With huge deposits of cash pouring in each and every month.
Absolutely like clockwork.
Life would be pretty rosy, right?
But, what happens if your subscriber rate, tanks, crumbles, suffers a heart attack... what then?
More...
And what happens if you resurrect the publication, but now, the subscriber rate and the publication is perceived as just another commodity amongst a bunch of commodity publications?
Bummer.
The Rosengarten Report had, in it's peak to 2008, over fifty thousand paid subscribers to its restaurant and food guide publication.
FIFTY THOUSAND!
It was the bees knees.
The publication was hailed by James Beard (Google him) as the best written food publication in the world.
If you were lured into the publication, you'd want to eat it the page it was printed on.
The publication was THAT good.
But why?
Here's the secret ingredient.
The recipe for their success.
Now I'm not 100% sure of this but much of the content was written by Gary Bencivenga, the best copywriter (salesman in print) in the world at that time - he's retired now.
Some of his special reports and written pieces for the company were devastating masterpieces in persuasion, gluing you to the spot, making your tummy rumble and your taste buds drool.
David Rosengarten suffered major health problems and the publication closed down for a number of years.
The RETURN;
Now, with health of the owner better, there's an online version
of the non paid for newsletter.
It came out late 2012.
Sadly, It's NOTHING like the original publication.
It's weak.
It's lacklustre.
For me, it's instantly throw-away-able.
How so?
The writer.
They've gone cheap.
They've slayed the golden goose and have not replaced it with the same money producing, customer attention readership magic that a communication-in-print-specialist like Bencivenga could create.
They've slayed the golden goose and have not replaced it with the same money producing, customer attention readership magic that a communication-in-print-specialist like Bencivenga could create.
Instead, they've hired some 3rd or 4th rate communicator whose skill is in creating a 'so so' experience for the reader.
What tells us the experience isn't a great one?
A few examples;
I'm not raving about it.
I'm not hailing the positives.
I'm not drooling over the screen, not googling the recipes, not hunting down the recommended suppliers, not becoming a member, not itching and eager to to wait for the free online newsletter publication version to drop into my inbox.
And look, we all know good writing, incredible persuasive and compelling writing when we read it.
The difference in the quality of writing in this newsletter probably amounted to some really sizeable numbers.
The Rosengarten people didn't do much except hire mediocrity with a CAPITAL M.
www.RajaHireker.com
