How do barbershops get free magazine subscriptions?
I can’t speak for barbershops, but I work for a company that publishes parenting mags. We’ll give away subsrcriptions to doctors’ offices because they’re the single best place to hit people in our target demographic. I wouldn’t be suprised if Playboy and Guns & Ammo have similar programs in barbershops, since it seems like I can’t walk into one without seeing a stack of both publications.
The magazine publishers get much more money from advertising than from sales, so they give away subscriptions to places like these to help their circulation figures. It’s also good advertising for them (well, if anyone ever reads the magazines) and they can target their demographics pretty well with certain types of shop – I bet places like barbershops are very good for this purpose. I’m not sure if there are formal services that do this, though.
Yep, there are companies that do this. Magazine ads are sold on readership, and research shows that the readers per copy are higher for “public place” copies. In theory, a magazine with a high reader per copy can command higher ad rates than another mag with the same circulation but lower readers per copy… I think. I haven’t worked in publishing in a while, and I forget stuff. The lists I’ve seen are for doctors’ and dentists’ offices.
Magazines would give their products out for free if they could. They make a lot more money from ads then they get from subscriptions. The problem is, if they just gave out subscriptions advertisers wouldn’t believe that people actually read the magazines. Paying subscribers are the only subscribers that matter. In a barber shop, a magazine, and it’s ads would be seen by many people, so it would be good for the magazine, and it’s advertiser to be sitting on the table in that shop, or any waiting room. So that would explain why your barber would just be sent free mags.
