Sales leads from business-to-business (B2B) magazine advertising are dwindling. As leads fall off, and magazines seek other ways to prove their value, many publishers are making a critical error: eliminating the magazine-managed reader response channel.
“Publishers are abandoning ways for readers to inquire about advertised products and services through their magazines – partly to hide the fact that sales leads are decreasing, and partly to supposedly save money by pushing inquirers to the Internet,” says Jim Nowakowski, president of Accountability Information Management (AIM), a Palatine, Illinois, firm that specializes in analyzing and measuring B2B media strategies.
Magazine publishers have stuck themselves in a downward spiral: Publishers push readers to the Internet to learn more about the products advertised in their magazines, and in so doing, the Internet further reduces the number of leads generated by these ads. Moreover, in an effort to cut costs, many publishers have discontinued inquiry reader response postcards/forms that readers can return by mail or fax, thereby reducing communications and the added information readers often provide about themselves.
“Publishers incorrectly assume that directing sales prospects to advertisers’ Web sites saves money,” says Nowakowski. “Eliminating the response channel is suicide for the publisher, because unless the advertiser has equipped himself to measure response, there is no way to tell where the inquiry originated. The reader response card is critical for verifying the quality of a magazine’s audience.”
Nowakowski recounts a publisher who hand-crafted his circulation to assure the high quality of his readership — and then the publisher discontinued his reader service card. His sales representative sold an ad schedule to one of AIM’s clients, and after six months, the client asked how many sales leads had been generated. “We had to report ‘none,’ because there was no way to know whether customers’ Web site visits or phone calls had resulted from reading the ad. Although the publisher convinced us of the quality of his readership, he could not demonstrate it, which jeopardized the remainder of the schedule,” he says.
To “save” the account, the publisher bound in a response card by the next ad for this client only. As a result, the client received more than 160 response cards, other advertisers demanded cards of their own, and the publisher ended up reinstating the reader service card for his magazine.
“This speaks to the need for keeping the channel open and having metrics to measure response,” says Nowakowski. Although he acknowledges that his client’s ad could have directed readers to a URL specific to that magazine or printed a special code that only those readers would be able to reference by phone, those are not sure-fire tactics: Inquirers often bypass these means, such as by omitting unique URL suffixes and heading straight to the home page instead.
“The reader response vehicle remains a highly effective strategy for servicing readers’ information needs while delivering key inquiry metrics for advertisers,” says Nowakowski. The Internet offers a way to effectively execute reader response, he adds, as long as publications maintain control of that response channel.
B2B trade publications, which are often geared to providing product and service information to professionals who spend more time in the field than at a desk, have not relied nearly as heavily on Internet usage as consumer publications with more tech-savvy readers. Yet B2B professionals, including contractors, building inspectors and maintenance managers, are increasingly tapping the Internet during the workday to download installation instructions, reference technical documents, and order parts and materials.
Like many magazines, Plumbing Engineer, a monthly magazine that reaches consulting, specifying and design engineers involved in the plumbing, piping and fire protection market segments, has been putting greater emphasis lately on working across both print and digital channels. The publisher recently launched a new site, PlumbingEngineer-Resource.com, on which advertisers can post their product literature free of charge as a value-added, lead-generating service. The magazine promotes this site to readers, who benefit by having a one-stop shop to request the product information they need.
“We are looking for opportunities to help our advertisers sell their products and services,” says Brad Burnside, publisher of Plumbing Engineer. “Advertisers continually seek the ‘value’ of advertising, and we have to tie in the circulation to that justification, and more. Some of that ‘more’ is this channel wherein the readers can respond to advertisers directly in one place.”
“The integration of print and Internet is ongoing and irresistible,” says Nowakowski. “Publishers have to embrace both channels.”
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