ViewPoint
June 2013

Verified Releases Verified Enhanced Audit Report for CFE Media

Note: This article was previously published in our May 2013 e-newsletter. However, due to technical difficulties [i.e., editorial negligence], the link to the Verified Enhanced Audit Report was not working properly. You can view the report by clicking on the link below or going to Verified's website at verifiedaudit.com.

Verified Audit Circulation has released a Verified Enhanced Audit Report for three CFE Media titles – Plant Engineering, Control Engineering and Consulting-Specifying Engineer. The Verified Enhanced Audit Report is a custom report that shows a publication's total audience reach across both print and digital channels.

The Verified Enhanced Audit Report is individualized to represent a brand's total audience engagement by combining print and digital audited data along with e-newsletters, social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), web traffic, webinars and white papers.

"This groundbreaking report carefully details how we engage with our audience across multiple product channels and allows us to show the true reach of each brands' audience," said Rick Ellis, Director of Audience Management at CFE Media.

"This type of report builds a lot of confidence and understanding in the various product offerings for brand channels," said Tim Prouty, Verified's CEO. "The Verified Enhanced Audit Report allows media buyers to look at brands as a whole and make decisions based on reliable data, creating a strategic opportunity that publishers should take advantage of."

SEE THE VERIFIED ENHANCED AUDIT REPORT FOR CONTROL ENGINEERING

If you have any questions regarding Verified's Enhanced Audit Report, please contact Verified at 415-461-6006.

Verified Would Like to Welcome...

Get Out There
Get Out There Communications Inc.
Toronto, ON
Get Out There Magazine East and West Edition (publishing Eastern Canada and Western Canada Editions) serves the Canadian endurance sports athletes and outdoor recreation enthusiasts. Get Out There profiles well-known athletes, does reviews of athletic gear and apparel, features articles about training and nutrition, and publishes an extensive race calendar.

Plant City Observer
Plant City Observer, LLC
Plant City, FL
The Plant City Observer is published once a week on Thursdays. It provides free home delivery to several neighborhoods in Plant City, Florida, and can also be found in many commercial locations throughout Plant City and the publisher's office. The Plant City Observer is the only home-owned and operated community newspaper serving Greater Plant City.

Add Social Media Stats to Your Audit Report

Social media is here to stay simply because "social networking" is an extension of what people do naturally: gather together to interact and exchange ideas.

Verified can now verify your social media followers to illustrate your brand reach into the social media sphere. Verified works with social media companies to report their statistics from sites such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Tumblr.

Publications can add their social media to their annual Audit Report for an additional fee of just $300.

SEE A SAMPLE OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS INCLUDED ON AN AUDIT REPORT

If you have questions about adding social media statistics to your audit report, please contact Verified at 415-461-6006.

B2B Revenues Rise Thanks To Events, Digital Ads

Overall, business-to-business (B2B) media revenues are growing due to an upward trend in B2B trade shows which, together with digital advertising, more than offset the continuing decline in print advertising.

The American Business Media's (ABM) Business Information Network reported that total revenues grew 3.4% from $24.6 billion in 2011 to $25.5 billion. Revenue from trade shows increased 4.4% from $11.2 billion to $11.7 billion, while print revenues fell 4.8% from $7.8 billion to $7.5 billion.

The print result is roughly in line with the consumer magazine industry, where total print advertising revenues fell 3% over the same period, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Digital was another bright spot for B2B, with digital advertising increasing 15.9% from $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion. Revenue from data and business information services increased 7.3% from $2 billion to $2.19 billion. Thus, in 2012 digital advertising contributed about 16.2% of total B2B revenues, up from 11% in 2008, while print advertising kicked in 29.4%, down from 37% in 2008. Trade shows contributed 45.8% – the same proportion as 2008 – and data and business information services accounted for 8.6%, up from 6% in 2008.

Looking to the future, ABM was cautiously optimistic, noting the results of a January survey of B2B media CEOs in which 58% said that business conditions were positive, while 35% were neutral and just 7% were negative. Among respondents, 60.5% expected business conditions to be even better next year, while 37% were neutral and 2% negative.

© MediaPost Communications 2013

Online Content Sourcing Critical For B2B Buyers

According to a new study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and NetLine, only 9% of business buyers approve vendor papers for the value and trustworthiness of their online content, while 67% rate content produced by professional organizations as more usable and relevant.

Industry white papers are valued most by 50% of the respondents.

B2B marketers annually invest an estimated $16.6 billion in digital content publishing to acquire business leads, influence customer specification and consideration, as well as educate and engage prospects, says the report. But, despite spending about 25% of their marketing budgets on content creation, most companies lack the necessary strategies, competencies and best practices to effectively engage their markets. And very few have content performance measures and metrics in place to measure effectiveness and calculate ROI.

87% of the respondents say that B2B online content has a major to moderate impact on customer buying decisions, while 67% also feel that professional association reports or papers have a similar impact. Online content is widely shared with peers and associates, mainly through email.

"B2B buyers are looking for content that's original, consultative and highly pertinent," said Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council. "Vendors are failing these buyers with promotional and technical content [that] doesn't adequately address market challenges and customer needs."

The report, Define What's Valued Online, shows that online content plays an essential role in influencing B2B purchasing decisions. The survey provides a snapshot of B2B content sourcing behavior as well as how content seekers rank, rate, share and value content online.

The CMO Council's Content ROI Center concludes that too few marketers have fully grasped the role and value of content in the process of sales lead acquisition, qualification, conversion and closure, or its contribution to customer retention and revenue generation. The report states that channel analytics and content testing are needed to further the "precision acquisition" of qualified, actionable leads.

VIEW ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM THE CMO
COUNCIL AND ACCESS THE PDF WHITEPAPER

© MediaPost Communications 2013

Events Calendar

The National Federation of Press Women Annual Convention
August 22 – 24, 2013
Salt Lake City, UT
www.nnaweb.org

Excellence in Journalism Conference 2013
August 24 – 26, 2013
Anaheim, CA
www.excellenceinjournalism.org

Society of Professional Journalists Annual Convention
August 25 – 27, 2013
Anaheim, CA
www.spj.org

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

Increasing Audience Engagement is Future for News Media

According to the annual World Press Trends survey of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, print newspaper circulations continued to rise in Asia and decline in mature markets in the West, while digital advances have increased the audience for newspaper content as never before. But the growth on digital platforms is not being followed by consequent growth in advertising revenues. An analysis of the trends data shows that news sites enjoy high readership, but the level of reader engagement is low.

"Newspapers reach a vast number of readers in print, online and mobile [while] advertising engagement in print keeps performing well and improves in many countries," said Vincent Peyrègne, CEO of WAN-IFRA, presenting to more than 1,500 publishers, chief editors and other delegates at the combined World Newspaper Congress in Bangkok. "Newspaper professionals understand [the] benefits offered by the digital world to improve the quality of their conversation with communities, identify [expansion in] new territories, help reduce the complexity of the world and increase the trust of their audience."

Mr. Peyrègne addressed the basic challenge to the news business as "an opportunity to come back to our core mission and values, empowering free citizens by providing them with the news and information necessary to make informed decisions in society."

The data, compiled in an annual report to all WAN-IFRA members, and through subscription to the World Press Trends interactive database, showed that:

• More than half the world's adult population read a daily newspaper: 2.5 billion in print, more than 600 million in digital form
  
• The newspaper industry generates more than US $200 billion of revenue annually
  
• Newspaper circulation declined only -0.9% globally in 2012 from a year earlier, as rising circulations in Asia offset circulation losses elsewhere

Showing regional circulation data, the study found that circulation declined over one year by:

• 6.6% in North America
• 5.3% in western Europe
• 8.2% in eastern Europe
• 1.4% in the Middle East and North Africa

In the same period, circulation increased:

• 1.2% in Asia
• 3.5% in Australia and New Zealand
• 0.1% in Latin America

Newspaper advertising revenues declined 2% globally in 2012 from a year earlier, and 22% since 2008. The five-year decline was driven primarily by newspaper advertising declines in the United States, the world's largest advertising market. Print advertising fell 42% in the United States over five years, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the global loss in newspaper advertising.

The decline in U.S. newspaper advertising revenues reflects the U.S. publishers' traditionally high dependence on classified advertising, says the report. An estimated 80% of classified is now digital. Though much of it is among "pure players" that are owned by publishers, that revenue is not reflected in industry statistics.

The report also shows that:

• The biggest challenge for publishers continues to be how to increase the engagement of audiences on digital platforms. While more than half of the digital population visit newspaper websites, newspapers are a small part of total internet consumption, representing only 7% of visits, only 1.3% of time spent, and only 0.9% of total pages visited.
  
• According to the Alliance of Audited Media, nearly half of U.S. publishers now adopt some form of paid-content model. 40% are using a metered model, one-third charge for premium content, 17% require payment for any access, and 10% use some other model.
  
• Mobile and tablets are rapidly becoming a medium of choice for many news consumers, accounting for 20% of page views in markets where data is available. Research in the United States, Germany and France suggest that news engagement via tablet, as measured by time spent with news content, is equal to that of the printed newspaper.

In the United States, 27% of newspaper company revenues now come from nontraditional sources:

• 11% from digital
• 8% from new revenue from other sources (service to clients in addition to advertising)
• 8% from nonpublishing revenue (e-commerce)

For the first time, World Press Trends includes definitive readership data on the Middle East. Readership varies enormously, ranging from 5% of people in Iraq to 70% in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

Finally, WAN-IFRA reports a direct correlation between newspaper success and their appeal to female readers. As readership levels rise, so too does the ratio of female-to-male readers. In Iraq, one-third of readers are women, compared to Kuwait where more women read newspapers than men.

VIEW ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM THE WORLD
ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS AND NEWS PUBLISHERS

© MediaPost Communications 2013

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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