Outstanding reach

Circulation audits may be a bit of an obscure tool, but for media savvy advertisers, they're key to making sure they get a useful return on their ad spend. All reputable media will be able to tell potential advertisers how many people are likely to see their message.

On a newstand or consumer newspaper or magazine, advertisers will want to know the title's overall reach, and demographic characteristics that indicate how likely customers are to buy their products.

On a business-to-business magazine like Cranes Today, advertisers want to know that we are actually being read by crane buyers.

We do that by making the magazine available to readers based on their job title and industry sector, using a list of categories that is found on our audit form.

When a reader applies to receive the magazine, by filling in the form on our website at www.cranestodaymagazine.com/subscribe, they are asked to supply their job title and other details, and a confirmation question (something like, "What colour was your first car?"). Every six months to a year, the magazine's circulation is audited by an independent company, who call a random sample of readers and ask them to answer that confirmation question again. That makes sure the details we pass to advertisers are correct.

Based on our most recent audit, I think it is accurate to say that we offer the best reach of any global crane industry magazine.

Overall, our most recent audit issue went to 16,660 readers, compared to 15,569 for our closest rival. That difference of a little over a thousand readers may not look like much, but the difference is even starker when you look more closely at how we define a reader. For us, it's important to make sure that the magazine is sent out as a hard copy, rather than a 'digital edition'. With a print magazine, particularly with trade magazines, the magazine is passed around the office and read when people have a moment free. With a 'digital edition' it seems to me likely that the email will only be opened once, by one person.

We send Cranes Today in print to 16,234 people around the world. Our rival only sends out 11,899 copies of their magazine in print.

The rest of their claimed circulation is made up of readers of their digital edition.

The same stark difference is clear when you look at individual requests. This is a measure of the number of people who have personally asked to receive the magazine, rather than getting it some other way. For our most recent audit issue, 6,201 people asked to receive the magazine. Our rivals could only manage 5,114.

Will North editor
wnorth@cranestodaymagazine.com