The torch bearer : $b a look forward and back at the Woman's journal, the organ of the woman's movement — John Shaqi
The torch bearer : $b a look forward and back at the Woman's journal, the organ of the woman's movementRyan, Agnes E.
History
The torch bearer : $b a look forward and back at the Woman's journal, the organ of the woman's movement
Ryan, Agnes E.
Woman's journal (Boston, Mass. : 1870); Women -- Suffrage -- United States
Of course, another part of the subscription work is in making changes
of address, changing dates of expiration and removing names of
those who do not want to continue to receive the paper, such as
the anti-suffragists, who do not want to be converted, to whom some
relative or friend or acquaintance has been sending the paper out of
her own pocket.
Then there is the work involved in getting subscribers to renew. When
the subscription list contained only twenty-four hundred names and
when there were few letters to write, it was possible to know the
names and perhaps something of the history of every subscriber,
especially since only a few were put on the books in a week. But with
a circulation of nearly thirty thousand it is obviously impossible for
any one person to give the whole list personal attention.
The result is that the business policy of the paper has had to be
changed a number of times to meet the changing needs. In the earlier
days of the paper it was thought that subscribers would watch the
expiration date on the wrapper of their paper and would send in the
renewal price without any kind of reminder. In those days Miss Wilde
and her assistant would go over the books twice a year and send a
reminder to all who had not renewed. As the list grew larger, this
plan seemed unsatisfactory to both the subscriber and the paper. Since
people were at liberty to start a subscription at any time in the
year, it was plain that a year's subscription would run out at the
same time the following year, and since this was going on twelve
months in the year, we began sending out bills each month to those
subscribers whose subscriptions were about to expire. That system was
in operation from 1910 through 1915.
During 1915, it was made possible for us to have enough helpers in the
office to make a study of the Circulation Department with a view
to seeing where improvements could be made, what leakages could be
stopped, and what kind of circulation work was paying. The result was
that we decided that along with our efforts to get new subscriptions
we must carry on a new kind of work to keep those already obtained
on our books. We found that it was not sufficient simply to send the
paper to a person for a certain time and then ask her to renew. We
found that we needed to study the source of the subscription, the
motive for subscribing, and how best to appeal to the subscriber
to renew. We found that since we had been keeping the record (1910
through 1915), about 26,000 persons have been on our books and for
some reason or other are no longer there. A careful study and a long
one showed that those whose papers had been discontinued in that
period fell into the following classifications:
1. Those who had died.
2. Unconverted antis.
3. Those who had not paid
after we had sent three
bills.
4. Those who had moved without
giving us their change
of address.
5. Those whom the post office
reported as "not found."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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