ViewPoint
August 2009

5 Free Ways to Motivate Your Employees

While money will always be a key factor in motivating people and keeping key personnel, that is not always the only answer. Here are a few free ways to motivate your employees.

Job Title
A job title taps into a person's self-esteem. It's how they are perceived by people at work and people they know. Are they proud or embarrassed by their title?

Be creative with possibilities for titles. Have your staff come up with their own ideas. Ultimately, pride enhances a positive attitude which is a foundation for success.

Good Work Environment
An industry study asked employers to rank what they thought motivated their employees and then employees were asked the same question. Employers felt "working conditions" was a nine (or next to last) in terms of importance. However, employees ranked working conditions as a two.

Cosmetically, how does your office look? Are there pictures on the walls, plants and fresh paint? Is there enough room or is the space cramped? Are there comfortable chairs and the office supplies they need?

On-the-Spot Praise
Praise people when the achievement is fresh on everyone's mind. Make sure you praise someone promptly for what they've accomplished or achieved. Wasting time dilutes the positive impact that praise can have.

Team Spirit
Have a picture taken of your entire staff, have it enlarged and hang it in the office in a visible spot. Most people like to see themselves as part of a team. People trying to reach goals together definitely enhances team spirit.

Time Off
Implement contests that earn time off. People will compete for 15 minutes or a half hour off just as hard as they will for cash. Introduce early dismissal, late arrival, long lunches, or additional breaks.

E-Readers – Who's Buying Them?

Who's buying the new e-readers? A new Forrester Research report released on July 29th found that e-reader early adopters have primarily been older, educated, Amazon-shopping men with money. However the big market growth will likely depend on women, who are willing to wait for prices to fall, are less tech savvy and who buy from a number of sources.

Forrester found that e-reader use is growing, "albeit from a very small base," wrote Sarah Rotman, the report's author. While awareness of the e-reader is growing, the number of buyers hasn't increased substantially. In the second quarter of 2008, Forrester reports, 37% of the 4,000 people surveyed said they'd never heard of an e-reader, while in the same quarter of 2009, only 17% said they'd never heard of it.

In the same quarter of 2008, 38% of people said they'd heard of an e-reader but had never seen one, which increased to 40% in 2009. The number of people who had seen one but never used one grew from 21% in 2008 to to 36% in 2009.

Of those surveyed, 0.6% owned an e-book reader in 2008 and 1.5% did in 2009.

The second wave of adopters, Forrester found, are likely to be men approximately 40 years of age, whom Rotman calls "tech optimists," and who are more likely to jump at a $99 device with an E Ink screen and that links to a smartphone for buying e-books.

Later adopters—the group with the biggest market potential of all—are likely to be women who currently buy or borrow approximately 5 books per month. They're less concerned with having the latest device, they'll wait for a $149 or $99 price point, and they buy their books from multiple sources, not just Amazon.

Forrester estimates that three million e-readers will be sold in the U.S. in 2009, and by 2013 it could reach 13 million devices sold.

Newspapers Still Send Consumers to the Store

According to early data from MORI Research, announced by the Newspaper Association of America, 59% of adults identify newspapers as the medium they use for planning, shopping, and purchase decisions, making newspapers the leading advertising medium cited by consumers for these activities.

NAA President and CEO, John Sturm, says "...while new technologies have their place in any total marketing program...newspaper advertising remains the most powerful tool for advertisers who want to motivate consumers to take action..."

In a series entitled "American Consumer Insights," early results indicate:

• 73% of adults regularly or occasionally read newspaper inserts
• 82% have been spurred to action by a newspaper insert in the past month

While 82% of those surveyed said they "took action" as a result of newspaper advertising, including:

• Clipping a coupon (61%)
• Buying something (50%)
• Visiting websites to learn more (33%)
• Trying something for the first time (27%)

Preliminary data also reveals that other media trailed well behind newspapers as the primary medium for checking advertising. The closest competitor, the Internet, trailed newspapers by 20 percentage points, direct mail gained a 14% response in the survey, and television was cited by only 8% of respondents.

MORI Research conducted this phone and Internet survey of more than 3,000 adults for the Newspaper Association of America representing the $47 billion newspaper industry and more than 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.

MORE INFORMATION

© 2009 MediaPost Communications

Events Calendar

min Conference - Bottom Line Leadership for Magazine Brands
September 30, 2009
New York, NY
www.minconference.com

Circday LA 2009
October 1, 2009
Los Angeles, CA
www.wfma.org

Modern Media Leadership Institute: 5 Social Media Workshops
October 5 – 9, 2009
Irvine, CA
www.modernmediainstitute.com

Worldwide Readership Research Symposium
October 11 – 14, 2009
Valencia, Spain
www.readershipsymposium.com

Magazine Innovation Summit
October 14 – 15, 2009
New York, NY
www.magazine.org

Mid-Atlantic Community Papers Association Fall Conference
October 16 – 18, 2009
Gettysburg, PA
www.macpa.net

DMA09 Conference & Exhibition
October 17 – 22, 2009
San Diego, CA
www.dma09.org

ConnexLive09
October 19 – 21, 2009
Chicago, IL
www.connexlive09.com

Intelligent Selling of Internet Advertising – Level I, Level II & Level III
October 26 – 28, 2009
New York, NY
www.laredogroupseminars.com

OMMA Mobile
October 30, 2009
Los Angeles, CA
www.mediapost.com

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

NAA: Newspaper Sites Enjoy Higher Traffic

Some 70.3 million people—or about 35.9% of all Internet users in the U.S.—visited a newspaper website in June, according to the Newspaper Association of America, which cited analysis by Nielsen Online. These visitors generated 3.5 billion page views in 597 million sessions, with a total visit duration of 2.7 billion minutes.

The unique visitors figure represents a 7% increase over June 2008, when newspaper websites attracted 65.4 million unique visitors per month.

Page views and the number of sessions both increased about 11.5%, from 3.14 billion and 534.5 million, respectively. Conversely, the average time spent by individuals decreased slightly, from 40 minutes 23 seconds to about 38 minutes 25 seconds. And in percentage terms, the slice of the total proportion of Internet users who visited newspaper websites also decreased 39.9% from June 2008 numbers.

These apparent decreases may be the result of a new methodology introduced by Nielsen Online; the NAA warned that statistical comparisons between this report and previous ones may not be valid. But if the total Internet population figures are valid, according to Nielsen Online, the total number of American Internet users increased from about 165 million in the second quarter of 2008 to 196 million this year.

In the second quarter of 2007, the NAA and Nielsen said that an average of 59 million people visited newspaper websites per month, representing 37.3% of the U.S. Internet population—implying a total Internet population of about 158 million.

In any event, the continuing success of newspapers in attracting online audiences only serves to highlight their continuing failure to monetize these audiences effectively.

According to the NAA, newspapers' Internet revenues totaled $696 million in the first quarter of 2009, the most recent for which figures are available. That's just over 10% of the total $6.6 billion. Total print and online revenues fell by $2.6 billion from the first quarter of 2008.

© MediaPost Communications

URLs Boost Magazine Ad Response

Advertisers seek to drive consumers to their websites as the Internet becomes a more important element in their marketing plans. As a result, web traffic and search results are increasingly regarded as measures of marketing success.

New research from Affinity confirms that magazine ads with URLs are more likely to drive readers to advertiser websites overall, as well as across a range of genres. Even if "drive to web" is not the goal of the advertising campaign, including a URL to boost web visits is a benefit most advertisers will appreciate, says the report.

The VISTA research is based on an analysis of 833 ads in seven different magazines representing six distinct magazine genres:

The research from VISTA reinforces earlier work. Marketing Evolution aggregated nine studies that had quantifiable data on web visits to examine how magazine ads contributed to building web traffic. Findings showed that when the URL was included in the magazine advertising creative, the percentage change in website visits tripled (from two to six points).

Both pieces of research underscore the importance of accountability for magazine advertising creative. A number of initiatives have shown that creative quality is the most important factor in affecting advertising results, although media engagement also plays a role.

To strengthen marketers' "drive to web" efforts, Magazine Publishers of America has compiled independent research that documents how various online and offline media influence consumers' online behavior, including:

• The role of media in driving online traffic, search, and purchase behavior
• The role of media in driving consumer response to online video ads

The research includes both third-party surveys from the American Advertising Federation (AAF), BigResearch (for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association), Mediamark Research, Inc., and the Online Publishers Association, as well as a new quantitative analysis from the research and consulting firm Marketing Evolution, that shows the impact of magazines in affecting web visits, examining results throughout the purchase funnel.

Overall conclusions of the compiled data:

• Offline media perform well in driving web traffic and search, often better than online media, even when URL addresses are missing or not prominently displayed in offline ads
• Media synergy is important, though each medium influences online behavior differently and plays a distinctive role
• Looking at qualified search, those consumers ready to make a purchase, paints a different picture of media usage than total search, which is most often the focus of advertisers
• When looking at the role individual media play in driving web results, magazines most consistently drive web traffic and search

In addition, conclusions from quantitative analysis:

• Magazine ads had a major impact on building web traffic
• Magazine ads generated web traffic at each stage of the purchase funnel, especially purchase intent
• Including a URL in magazine ads significantly increased web visits

And, from an earlier study from the AAF:

Finally, in support of the trend to Interactive marketing spending, a recent Forrester report, US Interactive Marketing Spend, 2009 to 2014, shows the expected growth:

Click, click, click:

MORE ABOUT MAGAZINE ACCOUNTABILITY

A COMPILATION OF RELEVANT STUDIES BY MPA

FORRESTER REPORT

© MediaPost Communications

Tips & Techniques: Accessing Your Audit Report Online

Accessing your Audit Reports online is quick and easy. Simply go to Verified's website at www.verifiedaudit.com. Click on On-Line Data & Reports and then View Circulation Data.

A search screen will appear next. Enter your publication's name, the publishing company, city, or state. You do not have to fill in all the search fields—only one is necessary. Then click on the Search button.

A results page will appear next. Once you've located your publication, click on the publication name that is shown in blue.

The main publication information page will appear next. This includes information about your publication, including address, phone number, frequency, types of circulation, etc. Below will be a list of the Audit Reports and Publisher's Statements available on the website. Click on the type and date of the report you would like to view.

The reports are password protected. You will need to enter your username and password to proceed further. If you don't know your username and password, contact Verified at 415-461-6006. Once you've entered your username and password, a PDF of your Audit Report or Publisher's Statement will appear.

You can print copies of the report or save them as PDFs and send copies to advertisers. You can also create links to the reports to include in emails and other marketing materials.

If you have questions about accessing your reports online, contact 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