In the world of chiropractic magazines, there are four leading publications to choose from regarding different aspects of the chiropractic practice. In today’s deep dive, we’re going to look at subscription plans for each and compare these across the board to help you decide which is the best resource for your unique contribution to the chiropractic community.
Paid Subscriptions vs. Free Subscriptions
If you’re looking over the subscription numbers for any magazine, one of the first variables you should watch for is whether the subscription is paid versus free—we’ll explain why.
Free subscriptions don’t cost anything and generally have few requirements for setting them up. They are a convenient way to get a lot of issues out to a lot of different people, even if you know the majority are not consuming the content. Free subscriptions are basically a scatter approach in marketing, hoping to capture at least a few engagements when a wide blanket of circulation is used. As far as content mix, free subscription periodicals usually have to rely on utilizing a greater share of space for advertising in order to create sustainable revenue.
Paid subscriptions to magazines charge a fee for getting a certain number of issues delivered to your home or business. These subscriptions usually operate on an annual basis, with 12 monthly issues being the most common rate of distribution. Paid subscriptions generally have more original content, framing the value behind why someone would be willing to pay for the publication.
The American Chiropractor Subscription
The American Chiropractor magazine offers a free print edition subscription of their flagship publication to individuals as long as they are currently practicing, fully licensed Doctors of Chiropractic. The website states that they reserve the right to reject any non-qualified applicants for this but even for those that aren’t practicing DCs, the issues can be accessed online. In fact, there’s an archive of past issues going all the way back to January 2000.
Within the magazine, you’ll find sections including feature stories, research review, clinical, immunity, technique, yellow page, coaches corner, what’s hot, and events.
Dynamic Chiropractic Subscription
A Dynamic Chiropractic newspaper subscription is available when you sign up through their website. The subscription is free but only available to licensed and practicing DCs. Those who aren’t eligible can still get the print subscription delivered to their home or business by purchasing a paid subscription. The non-DC paid subscription provides a new issue monthly for 12 total issues per year. The annual paid subscription for Dynamic Chiropractic is currently $60.
Past Dynamic Chiropractic issues can also be accessed free of charge on their website’s archive section. The Dynamic Chiropractic archives are extensive, going back as far as 1990.
Chiropractic Economics Subscription
Signing up for Chiropractic Economics is easy on the website under the dedicated subscription page. You also don’t have to be a DC to sign up to receive your first 20 issues of the magazine for free. Within each issue, you’ll find chiropractic news, product information, practice building, industry statics, and more.
You also have the option to opt-in for monthly e-newsletters, product, and service recommendations, and offers from third-party vendors. Even without signing up for the magazine, content for current and past issues is available in PDF format on the website.
From there, whole libraries of curated content are also made available on the site within a variety of topic categories, as well as interactive tools such as quizzes, webinars, and chiropractic e-courses.
Chiropractic Products Subscription
The Chiropractic Products magazine subscription is also easy to sign up for on their website. As part of the application, Chiropractic Products does ask for a DC license number; however, it does not directly state whether or not this is a requirement to receive the publication. You’ll also have the option to simultaneously sign up for promotional emails.
Online you can find archives both for past issues and past articles. Chiropractic Products focuses mainly on showcasing products, providing buyers guides for said products, coupons, samples, and more.
What the Numbers Say About Subscriptions
When you look at the metrics used to compare magazine subscriptions to one another, there are some figures that really stick out, given the current environment in health and wellness. The top three measures a good comparison will display include average annual circulation, average per issue circulation, and average requested readership per issue. We’ll look at why each is so important for grading different publications.
- Average Annual Circulation: This is how many issues are distributed on average in a given year. This is an important measure of how widespread the publication is and can be broken down by state, region, or whatever geographical distribution data set is desired. Circulation simply means how many issues are put out rather than how many are actually reading the content which we’ll hit on below. Of the top four chiropractic publications, The American Chiropractor has the highest average annual circulation numbers at 604,824, Chiropractic Economics is second with 571,480, Dynamic Chiropractic is third at 354,066, and Chiropractic Products ranked last with 180,000.
- Average Per Issue Circulation: This number pertains to the average number of each issue that gets distributed. As above, it relates to how much a publisher sends out on average for each issue of their magazine. Within this category, we see that The American Chiropractor subscription again leads the pack with 50,042, Dynamic Chiropractic is second with 29,506 per issue, Chiropractic Economics is third at 28,574, and Chiropractic Products is fourth at 15,000.
- Average Requested Readership Per Issue: When you take something with a grain of salt, it’s like a caveat or asterisk that explains the why behind it. The average requested readership is a little like that for the circulation numbers. Circulation can seem like an unusually high number, only to see that not all that many people are actually reading a certain publication. Average requested readership per issue is set by the advertisers indicating a certain threshold they’re expecting the issue to reach. For their investment, the advertiser is basically providing a performance indicator for the issue’s effectiveness at being readily consumed by the desired audience.
Within the four leading chiropractic publications, we see that Chiropractic Economics leads this category with 23,020 average requested readership per issue. Compared to the average circulation per issue of 28,574, that’s representative of an average of more than 80% of each issue’s circulation being read. The second ranking publication in our comparison was The American Chiropractor with 859 for the requested readership per issue.
One thing to look for in these numbers is an audit by BPA Worldwide. BPA serves as one of the most respected independent media audit companies globally. Chiropractic Economics was proud to be verified as the magazine with the highest requested readership among the top four chiropractic publications.
But with today’s chiropractic periodicals, subscription numbers only tell half the story. You need to also look at digital transformation and how effective each publication has been able to take their offering online. With social media and websites, the numbers are easy to track and they can’t be exaggerated. Looking at our comparison, we see that Chiropractic Economics has the highest numbers in these categories.
A Look at the Service Offering Behind Each Publication
As you’re considering what a subscription to The American Chiropractor gets you versus a subscription to Dynamic Chiropractic, another good place to weigh your options is with the different services they provide. Even if you aren’t an advertiser, seeing the level of services a periodical provides to the chiropractic community can give you a good idea of how in-tune they are with their audience.
The best companies will have a saturation of different services that demonstrates how well they’ve helped to bridge the gap between DCs, product and service providers, and even consumers.
Service Area Focus:
- Chiropractic Economics: widest service offering with everything from print and email marketing to list rental and direct mail. Also huge digital emphasis with PPC and analytics consulting, SEO, content marketing, lead generation, and more.
- Dynamic Chiropractic: good core service offering with print, social, and email marketing, list rental, pixel sharing, and a few others.
- The American Chiropractor: smaller core offering that cuts out social marketing to focus on list rental, print and email marketing, banner ads, and graphic design.
- Chiropractic Products: the smallest offering with list rental, graphics, and print marketing services.
The services offered by each publication acts as sort of a capabilities statement for everything they do for the chiropractic community. Those publications with the greatest reach are those that are engaging across multiple platforms and pursuits to provide the greatest linkage possible among industry stakeholders.
Sign Up for The Trusted Source in Chiropractic Periodicals
When you’re ready to get started with the leading publication for everything from effective chiropractic business strategies to teambuilding, patient care, and so much more, a new subscription to Chiropractic Economics is just a few clicks away.