Parenting School Years will raise its rate base by 50,000 — to 550,000 — as of its February 2010 issue. The magazine’s ongoing growth push also includes a custom publishing project, slated for August, and a move to newsstand availability in September.
One of Bonnier Corp.’s two Parenting titles, Parenting School Years has enjoyed a steady growth since its launch in February 2009, when Bonnier split the original Parenting magazine into School Years and Early Years editions. Early Years will maintain its 1.65 million circulation.
“Our ability to increase the rate base of Parenting School Years within six months after its launch is a direct result of the positive reader response to the versioning [age-targeted edition] strategy that we introduced for Parenting magazine earlier this year,” explained Greg Schumann, VP and group publisher of The Parenting Group at Bonnier. “We knew we had struck a nerve with moms of school-age kids as soon as we announced the School Years edition, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive to the new content offered to moms of older kids. We’ve been able to grow our readership organically by filling the need for parenting advice specifically targeting moms of school-age kids, a demographic that had previously been underserved by the parenting magazine category.”
Parenting School Years and Early Years will continue their growth efforts with a September direct mail campaign. The sweepstakes campaign will tie in to the brand’s Parenting Privileges subscriber cash-back rewards program.
In August, Parenting School Years will publish a custom back-to-school guide. The digest-sized booklet will have a circulation of 200,000, which will be distributed through schools and pediatricians’ offices nationwide. The guide will also be available online at Parenting.com.
School Years will also appear on newsstands for the first time this year. The magazine, previously available only through subscription, will be on Barnes and Noble newsstands as of its September 2009 issue. It will be promoted in-store with floor displays and a two-month subscription promotion.
“Newsstand has never constituted a significant portion of circulation for magazines in the parenting category, but the added promotional support that our partnership with Barnes & Noble will generate will significantly contribute to raising awareness for the School Years edition of Parenting,” Schumann said. “We’ll determine whether or not to expand Parenting School Years’ newsstand draw after evaluating the response to the Barnes & Noble promotion.”
