ViewPoint
Volume 4 | Number 6 | June 2008

Vancouver View Magazine
Vancouver View Publishing, Inc.
Vancouver, BC

Vancouver View Magazine is a full-color (full-colour, if you're from Canada), full-glossy monthly publication that celebrates the affluent lifestyle of Vancouver, British Columbia with a focus on living life to the fullest and showcasing the best of Vancouver and its surrounding areas.

Manila Mail / Philippine Headlines
Media First Corp.
Daly City, CA

Manila Mail is a weekly newspaper circulated mostly in the counties of California's Bay Area that have the highest concentration of Filipinos in the United States.

Philippine Headlines is a bimonthly publication that is mainly distributed in Sacramento and San Joaquin counties.

Verified would like to offer clients the opportunity to go green. If you would like your Audit Reports and Publisher's Statements in an electronic-only format, you can receive a PDF of your report rather than a printed report. The electronic reports will have the same appearance and format as the paper reports. You can then print as many reports as you need or send them in an electronic format to advertisers and media buyers.

Receiving your reports in an electronic format saves trees and fuel costs for shipping.

There are added benefits of receiving electronic reports beyond environmental. It's cheaper if you normally order paper reprints, you can print as many copies as you like whenever you like, and it's faster. The final approved reports can be sent immediately via email to anyone in your company. No more waiting.

At Verified, we have been working for several years on creating a paperless office, and we invite you to help us. To learn more about how to receive electronic reports, please call Verified at 415-461-6006.

by Jennifer Armor

In the past, payment has always been viewed as an indicator of "wantedness" and "engagement" for print publishing—whatever that means. It is considered the gold standard for quantifying and qualifying a consumer magazine's circulation.

However, measurement of web traffic doesn't meet the same condition. Payment is not a measure of "wantedness" on the web. With a few exceptions, most websites have not been able to make the pay-for-access model work.

Currently website traffic is measured by pageviews, unique visitors, time spent on the page, and other related measures. Industry experts agree that the system of measurement isn't totally accurate or reliable yet.

Does visiting a site mean the same as paying for a subscription? Media buyers are betting on it. A site's traffic is being used as the indicator of a visitor's engagement and, consequently, the cost of advertising on the site. But having a window open does not necessarily indicate the visitor is engaged.

Free distribution magazines currently meet the same measurement standard as websites. A reader makes a conscious choice to choose a magazine—much like clicking on a website.

TargetCast's Audrey Siegel says, "The most valuable reader is the person who actively sought out the publication. That doesn't mean they paid for it, but that person actively chose to engage, not just pick it up because it was there. A magazine reader is intimately involved with the edit and the ads."

Some websites provide free content but require registration for access. This normally consists of email address and a password. This equates pretty closely to a controlled circulation requester card but with significantly less information. When someone registers for access to a website, they may or may not ever return. When someone requests a magazine, they continue to receive it on a regular basis.

John Lavine, the director of the Media Management Center for Northwestern University, has found that people react in similar ways to advertising regardless of whether they pay for a magazine or if they get a free copy. The relative likelihood of readers to buy or influence purchase behavior based on whether they bought a subscription, purchased at the newsstand or read in a public place does not predict the reader's probability of purchasing a product.

There is an industry perception that paid equals "wantedness." In today's new media landscape, that assumption may be just an old wives' tale.

U.S. marketers say they will be cutting print and boosting online ad spending over the next three years, according to a survey by Eloqua, a Canadian-based company that helps marketers increase lead generation and customer acquisition with integrated campaigns, including online and offline components.

The survey, titled "State of the Marketer" for 2008, asked roughly 200 marketing executives from companies with revenues between $10 million and $500 million about their plans for the future.

Overall, 90% of respondents said they plan to increase online ad spending, and 15% said they would boost it "radically." Seventy-eight percent said they will increase spending on social media, 74% on email campaigns, and 65% on mobile texting.

In part, respondents said the move to digital media is driven by increased pressure for accountability in marketing by the rest of their organizations, with 86% saying corporate pressure has increased over the last three years.

The outlook for offline media isn't as promising, with print media taking the punches. Fifty-five percent of the marketers surveyed said they anticipate spending less on print advertising in three years. The Eloqua study did not specify newspapers, magazines or both.

© 2008 MediaPost Communications

From Magazine to Media Company
July 8 – 10, 2008
MPA Conference Center, New York, NY
www.magazine.org

Maximizing Ad Sales Two-Day Certificate Program
July 8 – 9, 2008
MPA Conference Center, New York, NY
www.magazine.org

2008 Marketing Accountability Conference
July 13 – 15, 2008
The Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, CA
www.ana.net

Advanced Media Forum: Monetize your Online and Mobile Content
July 14 – 16, 2008
The Fairmont Miramar, Santa Monica, CA
www.wbresearch.com

OMMA Behavioral One-Day Conference
July 21, 2008
Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, CA
www.mediapost.com

Magazine Marketing: Merchandising Programs & Other Events
July 22, 2008
MPA Conference Center, New York, NY
www.magazine.org

ASBPE National Editorial Conference
July 24 – 25, 2008
Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, KS
www.aspbe.org

If you have an event that you would like to announce, please send your information
to e-newsletter@verifiedaudit.com.

Alternative Newspapers and Their Sites Read by Suburbia

A new report issued by The Media Audit reveals that 43.8 million U.S. adults have read an alternative newspaper or visited an alternative newspaper's website in the past 30 days. The study, which compared past four issue readership among 117 papers across 88 U.S. Markets, reveals an average readership of 374,296 adults in 2007 compared to 362,938 in the previous year, a 3% increase. Further, the average number of unique monthly website visitors among the 117 papers is 113,469 adults in 2007 compared to 106,139 in 2006, a nearly 7% increase.

Bob Jordan, President of International Demographics, observes ".... one of the benefits for alternative newsweeklies is the opportunity to reach outside the city where papers are not as readily available... there are a lot of people who come into the city from the suburbs for entertainment and these alternative newspaper websites are positioned as one of the best choices for restaurant, live music, and concert recommendations."

Among the highest reaching alternative newsweekly in the country, Madison Wisconsin's Isthmus has moved to the top of the list, reaching 37.4% of all adults in Madison, compared to 34.6% a year earlier.

• Spokane Washington's Inlander ranks second in the study, reaching 36.1% of the market
• San Diego Reader (35.6% reach)
• Tucson Weekly (33.2% reach)
• New Haven, Connecticut's New Haven Advocate (32.4% reach)
• Columbia, South Carolina's Free Times (30.6% reach)
• Eugene Weekly (29.7% reach)
• Reno News and Review (29.2% reach)
• Madison, Wisconsin's The Onion (28.7% reach)
• The Austin Chronicle (28.6% reach)

Total reach is based on past four issue readership of the newspaper combined with past 30 day website visitors.

Alternative newspaper websites with the highest market penetration include: Madison Wisconsin's Isthmus (13.5% of the market), then:

• The Austin Chronicle (11.4%)
• Charleston, Carolina's Charleston City Paper (10.3%)
• The New Haven Advocate (10%)
• The Memphis Flyer (9.5%)
• Minneapolis's City Pages (9.2%)
• Madison, Wisconsin's The Onion (8.9%)
• New Orleans's Gambit Newsweekly (8.8%)
• Syracuse New Times (8.3%)
• Washington DC's The Onion (8.2%)

Among the top 10 highest reaching alternatives based on persons 18+ is New York's Village Voice with over 2.4 million readers across the New York City metro area who read the paper or visited their web site, followed by:

• Time Out New York (1.8 million readers)
• L.A. Weekly (1.7 million readers)
• New York City's The Onion (1.3 million readers)
• Orange County Weekly (1.1 million readers)

More information from this report is available from The Media Audit here.

© 2008 MediaPost Communications

by Jennifer Armor

Advertisers have many media options to choose from when it comes to spending their advertising dollars. Smart advertisers will only buy ads in publications that most effectively reach their target markets. With increased pressure for ROI, media buyers are looking for more than just circulation figures. Providing expanded metrics can overcome objections and allow you to sell more advertising.

There are three basic elements to successfully sell advertising: know your publication, know your readers and know your position in the market.

You already know your publication and market. However, independent, third-party research is an excellent way to get to know your readers thoroughly. It allows you to use qualitative and quantitative research to portray your readers as a group of consumers, rather than individual readers.

Data isn't information. Be sure to tell a story with numbers by connecting research to an advertiser's needs.

• Research the characteristics and demographics of the prospective advertiser's customers
• Compare your readers to their customer basis
• Develop an effective presentation using research findings to document that your readers are your prospect's customers, and the competition's value proposition is not nearly as effective

As a rule of thumb, survey your readers every two years. A survey will reveal changes in your readership and help you respond to changes in your market. In addition to sales, research can help editorial know if they are on target or need to adjust their focus.

You can use research as a door opener and a reason for a meeting with prospective advertisers. Used in combination with an audit report, research provides the facts you need to back up your circulation claims—reader demographics, readers per copy, spending habits, competing media, etc.

Verified provides custom telephone, in-publication, online or combination reader survey services as well as turnkey Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) surveys. They can be stand-alone or integrated into the audit process.

To get more information, please go to www.verifiedaudit.com or call Verified at 415-461-6006.

Please send comments and story ideas to e-newsletter@verifiedaudit.com or contact us at:

Verified Audit Circulation
900 Larkspur Landing Circle, Suite 295
Larkspur, CA 94939-1758
415.461.6006
415.461.6007 fax