This survey gives many insights into who reads our magazine and the benefits of it.
Research done over an audience of magazine readers and website users can reveal many things. The intention of most research is to show that our audience is engaged with our magazines, websites, and eNewsletters and perhaps even more so than with any other such media source.
Our Reader/Buyer Profile goes beyond that to shed some light on just who our readers are and how their buying habits are influenced. I was here when we did the first Reader/Buyer Profile for Hydraulics & Pneumatics over 20 years ago and I was both pleased and impressed with the findings. In a nutshell, it showed that our readers (we didn't have a digital audience then) really liked our magazine and read it with great care. It also showed that our readers were very much involved in the selection of a variety of fluid power components and that our magazine made a difference.
We just finished our 2012 Reader/Buyer Profile and, first of all, I want to call out the EXCELLENT work by our Research Manager, Julie Ritchie. She has taken what started as a useful report many years ago and has added to it by gathering additional useful information that adds further insight into who the Hydraulics & Pneumatics readers are and how they buy fluid power components.
There are many great takeaways from this Study but I will call attention to one in particular. It shows that 86% of our respondents claim that "seeing a suppliers ad in a trade magazine" makes them "more inclined to click on that supplier's listing in a search engine." I have been saying for decades that our magazine draws attention to our advertisers and their products so that buyers ask for and find them through many different resources.
The survey results also quote many of the responents directly and I will repeat one in particular that captures the spirit of our readers that reflects the kind of enthusiasm for our magazine that makes this endeavor so worthwhile. "It is extremely important that I get the latest information to work with. H&P sees to it that I have the necessary information I need."