I want to ask a couple of questions to the sales folk out there:
1) How many have had surveys done by Starch/Harvey on their publications and what benefit have they got?
2) What other surveys have they had conducted and have proved to be successful for the publication?
Give me some examples of the benefits to their publications (business gained/changes made). I am trying to assess the relevance for my book.
All the best,
Nick
Business Insurance Europe
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5 comments:
Nick:
AN used Starch for a number of years. Some sales reps would agree to their value when the ad scored well and they could deliver "good news" to the client/agency. Some reps found it difficult to report the "bad news" to the client/agency. It is sometimes difficult to tell someone that the baby is ugly!
If the reports were used properly, often times when the rep delivered the "bad news", it was an opportunity to help the client change the message to the audience and resulted in a more favorable score for the next Starch Study. I think these are good tools if they are used properly.
From the Management side, these reports are expensive and become worthless if the reps are not in agreement with the value. We made Starch Reports available for only a select number of issues each year. We selected a targeted number of issues (6) that offered an edit feature that would be of interest to the advertisers and would help in getting the page commitments that made the featured section a little bigger.
These are just a couple of thoughts, but I'm sure you will get a number of others who will give you the pros and cons of going down this road.
Hope this helps.
Tony
Nick,
I'm a big fan of Starch Readership Surveys and use them all the time. Automotive News has (6) surveys done annually on our book. I like it for multiple reasons.
1. Clients want metrics and Starch helps us with their PRINT ads which are difficult to measure.
2. Starch helps fill the "added value" void that clients/agencys are constantly requesting.
I'd be happy to discuss this with you. You provide the refreshments!
RG
Nick -
Here at Workforce Management, we haven't used Starch/Harvey for anything recently, but we do use Readex to conduct ad recall studies 3x per year, in select issues (usually early spring, summer and late fall).
I've found these to be very useful for the advertisers, as they provide actual reader comments on their recall of the ads, what they think of the creative (good and bad), etc.
As Tony mentioned in his post, sometimes it's hard to discuss the "negative" feedback with an advertiser but I think it's just as valuable. If you spin it correctly, you position it as constructive criticism they can use to improve their creative for the future, better tailoring it to what readers feel is important.
I don't know that I can directly tie these kinds of studies back to any increased business specifically (since these studies are done on exisiting ads), but I feel it is a great "value added" element of an advertiser's schedule with us, and provides feedback they may not necessarily get with competitors.
Happy to discuss in more detail if you'd like!
-Jason Asch
Ad Director, Workforce Management
Nick,
Here at AutoWeek we use VISTA, which is a readership study popular among consumer titles. The information has proven valuable as it provides great feedback on a client's ad as well as any actions taken by the reader including visiting the advertiser's web site.
TF
Nick,
I agree with Tony and Rick. I use Starch reports as a way to give added value and research intelligence to a client. It can sometimes be difficult letting a client know that their ad did not perform well. I try to gauge what the client wants out of the research and prepare my presentation of the information accordingly. I have had a client thank me for bringing them the news that their ad was underperforming and a change to the creative did make a difference in the next report.
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