According to British Rates And Data (BRAD), there are some 1400 B2B publishers in the UK producing 5000 trade magazines. They cover every conceivable sector, from accountancy to waste reclamation.
These 5000 titles have total estimated revenues of approximately £3.4 billion, 63 per cent of which comes from advertising. Around 2000 of these titles are in the commercial sector (defined as appearing at least six issue a year and with a commercial advertising rate), and just under half – nearly 1000 magazines – are audited.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) is the industry-owned organisation responsible for collecting circulation, readership and demographic data on publications in 187 sectors on behalf of advertisers, advertising agencies and publishers to provide a common ‘currency’ on which the industry can trade.
Unsurprisingly, Jan Pitt the ABC’s director of B2B, warns advertisers off unaudited publications, saying: “They’re not offering the most basic of guarantees, which is independent proof that the publication will be produced and distributed in the numbers claimed. That’s one of the key messages to advertisers when looking at advertising in the trade press: If you are buying a product like a cup, you can see if it’s broken. You can’t see a broken circulation.”
Getting noticed
While trade titles are highly targeted, they also tend to be fairly homogeneous within a given sector. This places an added onus on advertisers to achieve ‘cut-through’.
Evan Ivey, executive director of communications agency the AGA Group, explains: “In general media, you’re advertising against people from all different sectors. In trade media, you’re advertising against people who are similar to yourself, so trade advertisers need to dramatise the thing that makes them different or appealing. You do not have to conform to convention. Trade press is people’s third read after the daily newspapers and their favourite magazine. While people read it with interest, they flick through it, and you have to stop them in their tracks.”
There is general agreement among media planners that a sustained presence in trade press is vital to brand building, and that single insertions by contrast are, as one observer notes, “like burning money.”
Chris Wilson, director of B2B at the brand communications group Loewy, quotes the maxim that it takes a number of ‘hits’ to get a target audience to remember an ad, adding: “People shouldn’t go into trade press lightly. Run a series of ads. You can’t do a one-off and expect it to work.”
The right publication
With trade titles continuing to proliferate, the biggest challenge advertisers can face is where to spend their budget most effectively. Ivey says: “With so many magazines within each trade sector, they cannot all deliver – or they will all deliver you the same readership. Find out the two or three that you need to be in, and be in them seriously. There might be different reasons for appearing there. One might be where people go to select products. Another might be the opinion-former. Cut out the extraneous stuff.”
Richard Bush, MD of B2B brand development agency Base One, adds: “We ask ourselves, ‘Which are the magazines people turn to for reliable comment?’. They might have smaller circulations, but we invest our advertising in the ones that are trusted instead of the ones that have the broadest distribution.”
Potentially the most delicate aspect of the relationship between advertiser and publication is using advertising spend to leverage editorial coverage. While good editors appreciate their role in nurturing the relationship with advertisers, they should never be treated as mere back-scratchers.
Bush says: “As long as you don’t view it as a dependent relationship and treat it as a proper business relationship, there’s a benefit in editors knowing about you as an organisation and you knowing about them as a publication.
“It’s also a good way of judging a magazine. If you have lunch with the editor, and all he says is, ‘If you advertise, I’ll make sure you get coverage’, you’d walk away from that magazine immediately, because you know the content is going to be advertising-driven rather than reader-driven,” he adds.
Nine areas to consider before advertising
1. Selection: Review magazines’ ABC certificates for circulation, distribution and readership data. These can be downloaded free at www.abc.org.uk. Advertisers can search by title, market sector or publisher or rank titles by their own criteria, eg. circulation.
Check that titles are subscription-based or bought over the counter. Paid for copies tend to be more closely read. There are a lot of free – and often unread – copies circulating in professional media.
Study the content. Does the editorial directly address your niche within the sector? Then get the advance features list from the publication(s) of choice and plan your ads around that.
Check out who else is advertising; what they are saying and in what style?
2. Size: Yes, size matters, and every advertiser would like to have a double page opening spread in full colour. However, regularity and consistency are more important than doing an occasional big ad, so select a size which you can afford to run on a series basis. In general, smaller ads are the most efficient for direct response, while larger ads are best suited to brand building.
3. Creative: Test your advertising creative before you release it. Get a group of the target audience together, show them different ads and get their comments. Show it in situ by pasting it into the magazine(s) you are planning to advertise in. While standard practice in B2C, the test process is often avoided by B2B advertisers trying to save time and money. This can result in a less effective ad being run.
Chris Wilson of Loewy says: “Creative is getting better in B2B, although the standard is still quite low. So it’s quite a good time to get some strong creative together to make an impact.”
4. Format: If budget allows, do something different and more impactful, such as a wrap-around (a false, four-page cover wrapped around the real cover) or a fold-out.
5. Placement: Secure the best position and keep it throughout the ad series. In order, the most desirable placements are outside back, inside front and inside back followed by ‘facing matter’ opposite the most-read editorial features.
Evan Ivey of AGA Group says: “I would rather plan 12 months of somewhere that’s regular than be scattered throughout the magazine at different times.”
6. PR (editorial coverage, commentary): In B2B a lot of content can come from advertisers. Trade press editors continually look for input from throughout the industry in their quest to attract readers with new issues. Find out if you can be asked for comment – again, using the features list as a guide.
Evan Ivey of AGA Group says: “Start to understand how the channel can work for you, rather than just banging ads through it.”
7. Advertorials: This is paid ad space presented in an editorial style. It is usually written by the advertiser (although some publications also offer this service) and approved by the editor. Advertorials are a good way of maximising value for money on a limited budget.
Advertorial should not be a blatant attempt to sell products and services, but should be issue-based and create empathy and affinity with the target readership.
8. Integrated campaigns: All marketing activities – advertising, PR and sales strategy – should be incorporated within the same plan. All media – print, online, exhibitions, telephone campaigns – should be coordinated. This enables marketers to leverage the ‘media multiplier effect’, whereby different activities feed off and enhance each other.
Chris Wilson of Loewy says: “You’ve got to have a single journey that readers go on. If they go to a website, what is it going to add to their experience of a brand?”
Evan Ivey of AGA Group, which has an inhouse PR department staffed by five ex-journalists, adds: “Advertising and PR are totally complementary. If you want a really strong presence in the trade sector, to separate them is a real mistake.” He also says:”Trade press is people’s third read after the daily newspapers and their favourite magazine. While people read it with interest, they flick through it, and you have to stop them in their tracks.”
