subscription deal
23 Jun 2015

World's Worst Pitch Of World's Most Ethical Subscription Offer!

By New Matilda
Keywords: 
new matilda
subscription offer

Our last subscription offer was a disaster. So we thought re-writing it a bit and re-publishing might help.

Last week, we unveiled a new subscription deal which, if we were to be honest, we considered our most genius offer yet.

Readers who subscribe to New Matilda at the Keen level or above can nominate an Aboriginal business or not-for-profit, who would then receive free advertising on New Matilda.

To put it frankly, the offer bombed. While we greatly appreciate the limited support we did get, it’s by some margin our worst response to a subscription deal since New Matilda changed ownership a year ago.

So we thought we’d put it out there one last time… because we believe strongly in the offer… and because we need to keep the lawyers at bay, and pay our staff, rent, writers etc! We're famous for running on the sniff of an oily rag... but not that small a sniff.

So here it is: Readers who subscribe at the Keen level ($180 a year), get the activists DVD pack (Utopia, Pandora’s Promise and Budrus), plus a one-year subscription to New Matilda. You also get to nominate an Aboriginal business or not-for-profit of your choice (or choose from the list below) to gift FREE New Matilda advertising to the value of $450.

Readers and organisations who subscribe at our higher levels – Organisation or Big Love subscription – get to nominate up to three Aboriginal businesses or not-for-profits for FREE New Matilda advertising, to a value of up to $3,600. And yes you can nominate your own Aboriginal business or not-for-profit (ie. it’s a really good way to get really cheap advertising).

If the price is too steep, we’ve also got an offer for readers who re-subscribe or extend their existing subscription to NM, at the General level ($90 a year). We’ll sweeten the deal with a DVD copy of the documentary ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America’, a romping tale about courage in the media in the United States.

And for new subscribers at the General level, your money will go towards funding hard-hitting independent media.

Stories we’ve got coming up include a major investigation into Aboriginal education in NSW; and a special feature on Great Moments In Capital Punishment.

And we’ll bring you our usual mix of kick-arse Aboriginal affairs, environment, politics and asylum seeker reporting.

 

 

Pick a mob, any mob

You can choose your own Aboriginal business or mainstream not for profit to support, but if it helps, here’s a few of our favourites.

1. BIMA (the Brisbane Indigenous Media Association, which runs 98.9 FM Murri Country radio in Brisbane).

2. The National Indigenous Radio Service (which provides Aboriginal specific stories around the country).

3. The Aboriginal Medical Service Redfern (an iconic Aboriginal health service based across the road from NM in Redfern).

4. Maari Ma Health – a Broken Hill-based Aboriginal Medical Service.

5. The NSW/ACT Aboriginal Legal Service, in particular their Custody Notification Service (which was recently defunded).

6. Amnesty International – needs no introduction.

7. Sea Shepherd – the hard-core ‘pirates’ of the high seas, who take on the Japanese whaling fleet every year and promote sea conservation.

You can, of course, nominate your own Aboriginal business or mainstream not-for-profit - think refugee advocacy groups, environmental organisations... any community based not for profits which practice good, strong ethics.

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This user is a New Matilda supporter. Venise Alstergren
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - 16:03

Why spend your money, money you obviously need, giving away things that also cost money? Why not run a competition for the wittiest comment/reason for wanting to subscribe/read NM? Give the lucky receipent who wins a 12-24 month subscription.

 

By admitting your last push for subscription was a failure you mix your message.  On the one hand you're saying NM is a terrific and exciting read. On the other hand you're saying, "Shit, this NM is no bloody good because we can't get readers." It is the same mixture that causes that awful Tony Abbott to co-announce a semi-intelligent suggestion...followed by garbage like "Grannies to get granny flats free of charge." (Front page of the Australian?)

This user is a New Matilda supporter. Venise Alstergren
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - 16:01

PS: I am a paid up reader.

This user is a New Matilda supporter. Chris Graham
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - 16:20

Thanks Venise... we're a pretty honest, transparent organisation. If a strategy flops, we usually admit it. My personal view - that's a good thing. Except not everyone will agree.

Rowan
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - 16:25

Same. Paid up.

( Like Venise said, where all cool folks, :) , supporting independent media; like Crikey I don't figure with the freebys when ya need the doe! )

mikisdad
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - 17:29

I know virtually nothing of the internal side of publicity, advertising and fund-raising, save that largely it appears to benefit those that work in the industry, regardless of whether or not it achieves for those who use their services.

Sadly, in a consumerist and materialist society, it is not easy to entice people to part with $$$ for motives of altruism or principle.  Indeed, if it were, independent media such as New Matilda would probably be largely unnecessary.

My own view reagarding the lack of success of the campaign is that, sadly, the New Matilda is unlikely ever to attract more than a niche group of supporters, in the same way as does the New Internationalist and others.  i sincerely hope that I am proved to be wrong in that assessment and time will tell.

For myself, as a fixed income pensioner surviving in luxury on around $800 per fortnight for two of us, I wrestel with whether I take out a subscription to one of the best current publications I know or whether I put that same amount into supporting work In the Developing World or with First Australians or Asylum-Seekers in our own country - not to mention a hundred and one other deserving causes that come to mind.

Perhaps crowd-funding coiuld be an option?  Perhaps the New Matilda could ally with journals such as the New Internationalist and you could promote one another?  I don't profess to have the answers.  I *do* admire your strenght, honesty and commitment to what I regard as the last hope in the fight to keep Australia from becoming completely lost.

When I read some of the responses here and compare them with the worth of the articles in New Matilda, I lean more and more towards finding that $70 for a concessional membership - or perhaps there is some way I could work for my keep by doing something for the journal that currently takes time or money, or both.  Perhaps that is another option to keep you open and operative?

Whatever, I wish you well and sincerely hope that you can keep your heads above water.  It is sad that Australia has become almost as litigious as the US and that the wealthy can literally put their critics out of business by use of an over-priced and under-funded legal system.  It seem that we are well on the way back to a society ruled by a privilege elite - this time based on wealth rather than title or the Monarch's favour.

DrGideonPolya
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - 18:13

I posted  my $180 keen NM supporter renewal subscription  cheque a month ago but it doesn't seem to have registered yet.

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity  and it is grossly  insufficient  for  decent and pecunious Australians to  weep into their beer over the gross derelictions of Mainstream media - they must back truth-telling Alternative  media like New Matilda by subscription and/or similarly truth-telliing, humane and critical  Australian Alternative media like  Green Left Weekly, Red Flag and Crikey ( I am serious about humane  truth-telling and  accordingly subscribe to all 4).

This user is a New Matilda supporter. sonja.habenicht...
Posted Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - 11:19

Thank you so much for your hard work and honesty! And yes - what a bloody good deal!!
I did subscribe but wasn't able to select my choice of organisation to revive the free advertising. Did I miss a button somewhere? I can't seem to find it! (I also don't mind you selecting whichever one you deem worthiest but have something particular in mind also).
Thank you guys!