BRM November '18

[4railsman]

The message is a bit mixed in Steve's post isn't as in one place it refers to 'every reader' but it then refers to 'newsstand copies' coming with the free kit.   Seems maybe we subscribers area cut above 'every' and perhaps beyond simple kit building in our skills or interests but instead we also get a different cover and the DVD for our money so it looks like newsstand visitors aren't getting the DVD.

 

So lots of mixed marketing here and i'm sure that makes sense as various ideas are tried out by the BRM team but I do wonder on this particular occasion about the cost of running two different covers?

 

Must say I agree it's now very confusing about the various contents to be found in particular versions of BRM on a specific month.

 

From all the recent posts about the November issue, it seems that digital subscribers get a completely different version of BRM extending this month to some 300-pages but have to buy the Metcalfe kit for £4.99, whereas the PRINT copies on the high street include it although the magazine price is considerably higher at £5.49 and looks not to have any DVD included.

 

I think the time has probably come to change the name of the digital download version from BRM to something else on a permanent basis, rather than just adding "Digital Download Edition Only" and hoping everyone understands the content differences between these various issues. If the BRM brand name has to remain at all costs, how about prefixing the logo as Digital BRM which would make the cover image immediately obvious that these are two very different products, albeit with some content items appearing in both versions.

[jacko]

Well disappointed now. Just had a call from Mrs Jacko who's just bought me a copy from wh Smith. it has the card kit but not the DVD. The only reason I asked her to buy me a copy when she was in town was because Tony told us on Wright writes that the November issue came with a DVD of the 1938 Little Bytham running session.  I do feel that paper copy purchasers are being cheated somewhat. Shan't be buying this magazine again.

[CUTLER2579]

Having purchased BRM since it's inception in 1990 ,I didn't renew my subscription earlier this year intending to purchase copies from Smiffs.

I was about to hop into town to get the November issue being  particularly  interested in the 1938 DVD knowing most of those involved. However for £5.49 I get the magazine with a "OO" Card Kit that is of no use to me as an "O" gauge modeller. One less purchaser this month I am afraid..

Regards,Derek.

Edited October 11, 2018 by CUTLER2579

[08221]

Just bought a 6 month subscription to paper BRM which also said it has links to the digital edition.

 

Nowhere can I find a link for the digital version - bit of a pain as I wanted to download it to take on holiday tomorrow to  occupy a bit of in flight time.

[meatloaf]

This is the reponse from BRM on the facebook post

 

"Thank you for taking the time to comment. It’s not a FREE card kit, the price of BRM is higher at £5.49, newsstand copies don’t include the FREE DVD. If you subscribe to BRM you will benefit from a FREE DVD with every issue, you will pay, on average, approximately £3 per issue with FREE delivery, benefit from either an initial FREE gift or a super low introductory price also you will get a discount to our three exhibitions. We hope this answers your questions and concerns"

[Howard Smith]

Just bought a 6 month subscription to paper BRM which also said it has links to the digital edition.

 

Nowhere can I find a link for the digital version - bit of a pain as I wanted to download it to take on holiday tomorrow to  occupy a bit of in flight time.

 

Hello Steve,

The link to the digital edition of the magazine is: https://pocketmags.com/british-railway-modelling-magazine

Hope this helps,

Howard

[jacko]

So we're being given a reason for them to have suddenly stopped giving away the DVD with the newsstand issue? 

[Stanier16]

I agree with Christ! I received my subscription copy on Tuesday and must admit to being a bit mitf that if I want the kit I have to buy one from world-of-Railways for £4.99, where as a shop bought copy includes both the dvd and kit for £4.75! That of course excludes the cover cost of the subscription copy.Come on BRM aren’t subscribers (whether virtual or hard copy) your market? Equally, please look after your captive market. After all, we pay quarterly for the privilege! Comments please Mr York et al!

[ruggedpeak]

This is the reponse from BRM on the facebook post

 

"Thank you for taking the time to comment. It’s not a FREE card kit, the price of BRM is higher at £5.49, newsstand copies don’t include the FREE DVD. If you subscribe to BRM you will benefit from a FREE DVD with every issue, you will pay, on average, approximately £3 per issue with FREE delivery, benefit from either an initial FREE gift or a super low introductory price also you will get a discount to our three exhibitions. We hope this answers your questions and concerns"

At some point they need to stop trying to be clever before they manage to alienate their readers by making all of them feel someone else is getting a better offer, or being so confused they buy a competitor magazine since they don't end up with a nagging feeling that they've bought the wrong version of the magazine with a dvd, or not with a dvd but with a model, or digital only with extra pages but no model or dvd, or a cheap subscription copy with a DVD but no model, or a subscription offer that came with a gift copy.........

 

It is a good issue this month but this is being buried under the confusion over what of the many versions of BRM any of us are actually getting.

Edited October 11, 2018 by ruggedpeak

[RedgateModels]

Seems pretty clear to me

 

newstand versions are higher in price partly to cover the cost of the card kit. The rest of the fiver (for the kit) is covered for by not including a DVD. Personally? I think it is a shame the DVD is not included in the newstand version as there does not seem to be any authorised route for shoppers at Smiffs to get a copy

Edited October 11, 2018 by RedgateModels

[jacko]

I agree with Christ! I received my subscription copy on Tuesday and must admit to being a bit mitf that if I want the kit I have to buy one from world-of-Railways for £4.99, where as a shop bought copy includes both the dvd and kit for £4.75! That of course excludes the cover cost of the subscription copy.Come on BRM aren’t subscribers (whether virtual or hard copy) your market? Equally, please look after your captive market. After all, we pay quarterly for the privilege! Comments please Mr York et al!

 

The shop bought copy does NOT include the DVD.  If you want the kit I'll happily swap it for your copy of the DVD as it's of no use to me. Also, the shop copy is £5.49. Far more than RM for a lot less desireable content. 

[Stanier16]

The Facebook relply isn’t clever, just a very badly worded corporate response! Even given the subscription cover price of £3,70 adding £4.99 for the kit is still more than the higher £5.49 for the high street copy! So if a subscriber want it he kit, the total cost will be £8,69! Perhaps the Facebook guru needs to come back into the real world rather than simple trying to B&@@ brains in the real world.

[grahame]

The card kit won't fit in a DVD player nor will it fit on my layout being the 'wrong' scale. So is there anyway of purchasing a paper one-off issue of the magazine (without taking out a subscription) that does not include the card kit and the inflated price? Or maybe has the DVD instead.

 

G

[4railsman]

Anyone been to Tesco (or other supermarkets) to see if they have the November issue as a Special Edition at 99p like happened several times in the recent past?

[ruggedpeak]

Anyone been to Tesco (or other supermarkets) to see if they have the November issue as a Special Edition at 99p like happened several times in the recent past?

does it have the DVD or model kit with it?

[meatloaf]

It was WHSmiths that had the 99p version last time

[Cornholio]

If you contact the BRM team via this link:

 

https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/brm/competitions/wheres-my-dvd

 

Someone at Warner's will either send you the weblink or stick a DVD in the post to you, gratis.

 

I post this with reluctance, as I feel that some on here may well abuse this offer by requesting a DVD without purchasing the magazine.

 

But that wouldn't be smart or clever, it would be a pretty scummy thing to do.

 

On the flip side it offers genuine customers an opportunity to view the DVD content. Kind of a win-win situation?

[Steamport Southport]

It was WHSmiths that had the 99p version last time

 

It also depends on which WHS you go to.

 

Last time the High Street branch didn't have the offer, but the one in the station did. Previously it was the other way round.

 

 

 

Jason

[Crichel Down]

This all seems an excellent way of losing sales and ensuring a drop in circulation.

 

Time was when I regularly bought BRM, but I have been put off recent issues by these gimmicky marketing tricks and shenanigans with content, packaging and pricing.

 

(Maybe the idea is to kill off the print edition altogether by engineering a significant drop in print sales as an excuse to go digital-only.)  

[Huw Griffiths]

I fully "get" the idea that Warners pay the bills round here - also the concept of us buying BRM, GardenRail etc. effectively us (as magazine purchasers - and RMweb members) contributing toward the cost of running this excellent site.

 

Add to this the fact that these are excellent magazines - and yet, again, I find myself one of a significant number of regular magazine purchasers / readers who got a sort of hollow feeling when we picked up our copy of this month's BRM.

 

Not only had the cover price gone up - presumably to pay for a card kit that some of us will never be able to use - but there was also a space where our cover DVD should have been. (As I said, we got a hollow feeling.)

 

It's DVD-gate all over again - and a number of us are definitely not amused - especially when this month's cover DVD was clearly one of the better examples of the breed.

 

In other words, I was really looking forward to this month's BRM - including its cover DVD, which is actively plugged on this site. In fact, I would really like to be able to tell people just how great the COMPLETE newsstand offering of BRM is - every month. Unfortunately, I cannot - especially when this DVD is missing.

 

 

Let's face it, guys - whatever "experiments" anyone is playing at, annoying your magazines' regular readers has never been a good move. I trust that this nonsense will soon cease - that newsstand purchasers will soon be allowed access to the material on the DVD missing from the version of BRM we're allowed to buy - and you'll stop this "look at what you could have won" style taunting of your readers, once and for all.

 

Come on guys - you know it makes sense.

 

 

Regards,

 

Huw.

[Chris116]

We appear to have three versions of BRM this month. 

 

The "Subscriber Paper" with a DVD

The "Digital" with lots of extra content

The "Bookstall Paper" with a Card Kit

 

Most people are probably interested in one of the three choices but we have no way of knowing which version each month will be the one that is best for the individual which means a lot of unhappy people who normally would support BRM if only one version was produced and therefore none of us felt we had lost out in some way.

 

I know that all the team work very hard to produce a very good product but this messing around with different versions is upsetting a lot of us. 

 

Personally I am a "Subscriber Paper" person who while not very keen on the DVD in fact I do find something of interest on it most months. The kit in the "Bookstall Paper" version will only be of interest to those in 4mm scale which includes me and if I am totally honest I would much prefer the kit to the DVD but there is no way I want to buy it for £4.99 as I have no idea if it will be useful on my planned layout once I have built it. If I had been given the choice then I would have had the kit and no DVD.

 

All in all I feel that it is good that a magazine has lots of ideas on how to make it more attractive to potential customers as that means I will still be able to buy it in the future but if getting new customers with the ideas loses the same number (or more) of the current regulars then the magazine could vanish and there is no way I want a Digital version as I have tried that with other interests and found that I prefer a real magazine rather than a digital on, maybe something with being 64!

 

I do hope this can be sorted out by those in charge before the whole thing implodes.

[Andy Y]

Hang on with the acidity and remonstrations chaps.

 

Firstly I've been out all day so this is the first chance to address it. The newsstand copies which include the Metcalfe kit are to hopefully get new readers to pick up the magazine - that's the reason for it and hopefully we can get them to become repeat customers. Yes, there is a cost to it which is reflected in the price change. We have had previous issues where a DVd wasn't included and as we explained then the best way to ensure you always get a copy is to become a subscriber (print or digital) - this also has financial benefits which we pass on to subscribers or the alternative is to take one of our offers to subscribe including other gifts at one of the shows. And yes, the digital version makes use of tech and our efforts to bring you extra content so there are different products from customers to choose from.

 

We have some further cover gifts in coming months on newsstand copies so if you want to make sure of getting the DVD, as said perviously, the best thing to do is subscribe if you want it every month. The cover mounted DVD won't be disappearing though as there's plenty of content lined up for further issues.

 

I will discuss with Steve about access to the material - this could mean a lower cost digital version which includes the DVD content later in the month.

 

We don't set out to upset any section of the readership but seek to get great value in different ways. Oh and one of the future cover-mounted gifts on an issue in a few months is a very good one (but I am biased).

[grahame]

. . . there are different products from customers to choose from.

We have some further cover gifts in coming months on newsstand copies

Snag is that it's not possible to make that choice on a one-off month by month basis - you're either a subscriber or a newstand purchaser. Currently the choice seems to be that subscribers have pay more for the card kit and newstand purchasers go without the DVD.

 

But how about making one of the offers/gifts/extras available one month to everyone and then the other offer/gift/extra to everyone the following month. Would seem easier to administer and perhaps encourage sales for the effort put in over two issues.

 

G

[Andy Y]

. Currently the choice seems to be that subscribers have pay more for the card kit

As we've said to Facebook posters (who mostly seem to be subscribers who want the kit) send us your details and we'll post one out.

 

Leave the converse one with me until tomorrow.

[beejack]

To be honest I think the thread for Novembers magazine was very badly handled from the start.

Promoting the digital edition hard and being very quiet about the paper edition seemed odd as most months both versions are advertised together.  Now we know why.  All you seemed to have done is angered subscribers.

 

Wouldn't it have been better to be up front with everyone in the beginning and explain the reasoning behind the various editions.

 

On the subject of the cover disk, the videos on the digital version are watchable on You Tube.  Why do you need to produce a cover disk why not just print the links in the magazine? 

 

Not everyone likes to read a magazine on a tablet or PC.  I for one find it difficult to read having to zoom in and out on the I-pad.    

 

I bought this months digital edition to see whether it was worth  swapping over.  The BRM windows app would not play the videos or show the additional photos, the Pocket mags app worked but the additional pictures are different sizes so when a smaller image is on screen the larger image is visible around the borders. 

 

Hasn't really convinced me that the digital version is better!  Quite the opposite in fact, I'm asking myself do I want to keep subscribing. I wouldn't be surprised if others are starting to think the same and you could start to lose readers rather than gaining them.