'Folio' and 'Audience Development' magazines merge

Red 7 Media has combined Folio and Audience Development magazines. Audience Development, which had a frequency of 10 issues per year, is now polybagged quarterly with Folio, which is distributed monthly. Audience Development was first included in Folio's January 2010 issue.

A statement on Audience Development's Web site said the move is a “growth strategy intended to recognize the trends in the business and better serve [its] readers.”

There is also now a section within Folio devoted to Audience Development content, which has been expanded in the eight issues that don't contain the freestanding supplement, said Jeff Hartford, director of Red 7 Media.

About 5,000 of Audience Development's 8,000 subscribers will be added to Folio's circulation list. Before the merge, Folio had around 9,000 subscribers, Hartford said.

“We sent out an e-mail blast and explained on the [Audience Development] site what the merge was all about,” Hartford said. “We didn't do a specific offer for those whose names we didn't merge, but we plan on doing that in the near future.”

He said the Audience Development list was scoured manually to make sure certain companies and decision makers were merged.

Audience Development and Folio will still maintain separate Web sites and e-mail newsletters.