A boom in subscriptions to children’s magazines

“Under the starry sky.” “The crazy invention of Zeli Zebulon”. “The jungle” or “animals in the spotlight!” »Lots of colorful headlines from recent magazine reports The explorersAnd the I like readingAnd the Grilled cheese or trick, And it ended up in more mailboxes than ever before. Because youth magazines in Quebec saw an increase in their subscriptions in 2020, with an increase ranging from 10 to 40% depending on the title.

Side effects of confinement. And this is understandable: these magazines contain entertaining and educational content, designed for children and renewed month after month. A panacea for parents who most need home school.

“We’ve filled in several boxes on the list of parents’ needs,” sums Karen Desroch, head of youth marketing at Bayard Canada, “just by continuing to do what we have been doing.” Another bonus, subscription purchases are without health risk. Bayard Canada owns or distributes nearly 40 youth magazines, including 6 from Quebec: The explorersAnd the trickAnd the CuriumAnd the Small appleAnd the Bobby And the I love reading for the first time. All the titles combined, Bayard Canada, from March to December 2020, saw a 26% increase in their subscriptions, some titles increased 10%, and others by 30 or 40% – amazing increases for this segment.

“Quebec magazines have benefited from local buying awareness,” continues the master.^I Rocks. In January, Explorerhe sat trick Each sold 33,400 copies, which is a historic record for publishing educational journals in Quebec, identifies Julie Champaign, Marketing Director for these journals and Curium.

Even the magazine Bobby, For 1 to 3 years, he grew up. “It’s the hardest sell because parents don’t think they’re actually reading with their young children,” says M.^I Rocks. I’ve been at Bayard for the past 13 years, and Bobby Until last month, it was unable to exceed 5,000 subscribers: 7,500 subscribers. “

Free that you pay

“Above all, we discovered a change in all educational content consumption, on the rise,” notes M.^I Rocks. “When there was the first incarceration, with schools closed, parents and teachers had a real need for educational and entertaining content that promoted learning to read,” recalls the Marketing Director.

Bayard Canada then shared free content on social networks, much more than usual. “In the first month, we offered most of our magazines for free online. The needs were very dire … and there was a delay in the mail, the teachers found themselves teaching overnight remotely, some subscribed to their classes and no longer had access to the magazine. We were more cowardly about sharing content. “

Not only did the windfall profit benefit from educational magazines. Wonderful !Designed for a predominantly female audience between the ages of 13-17, it focuses on entertainment and pop culture, with star interviews, and tips on beauty, lifestyle and lifestyle. Stickers. TVA Publications “saw an increase in the magazine’s overall circulation Wonderful !“The content has been modified, as with many adult magazines, to better respond to the realities of the pandemic,” says Audrey Corivo, Newspaper and Magazine Marketing Director.

Print in your kitchen

Even the magazine Grilled cheeseTiny, intertwined, literal, bilingual, thoughtful, edited and printed – in resography – in the filmmakers’ kitchen, its subscriptions skyrocketed. “It surprised us because people usually spot us at craft fairs. [comme Expozine, par exemple]. There, it happened through social networks, says manager Catherine Ulley. “From November 2019 to November 2020, subscriptions to our two magazines doubled (one for children aged 2 to 4 years old and the other from 5 to 10 years old).”

numbers ? He smiled at the sound. “Oh, we are so few. We went from 125 to 250 signups,” with an amazing resonance in western Canada, where many parents wanted (“It’s not anecdotal, we’ve already received many messages …”) to take advantage of the pandemic to learn French For their children, and with them, with the help of this Grilled cheese Bilingual.

One year later, with the renewal date approaching, is there a feedback effect arising from the withdrawal of these new subscribers? Not at all, the speakers answered. M. The phone in Bayard hasn’t gone out for three months.^I Rocks. Once verified, overloaded fonts make some resubscribing difficult, requiring several attempts before entering into contact with an agent.