It's this kind of exhaustive research effort by Ross's research department, a part of McGraw-Hill Information Systems, and McGraw-Hill, Inc., which has helped make the New York based company one of the country's leading publishers of business magazines. Moreover, it's been one important way of letting advertisers know that McGraw-Hill is a place to get market information and market help.
"The research helps sell the value of advertising as well as examine markets or audiences," explains Ross. "It also aids in building a strong relationship between the marketers, who need to reach buyers through advertising, and their advertising agencies."
Media research
Ross describes media research as that information which is obtained for editorial and advertising purposes. Advertising-oriented surveys constitute a major part of this research area because advertisers want to learn how effective their advertising campaign is and McGraw-Hill wants to demonstrate that advertising is an effective way for companies to increase sales and exposure in the marketplace.
For EC&M, a technical magazine which is edited for electrical contractors, plant/facilities electrical people and electrical consulting engineers, two types of media research studies known as customized advertiser studies/readership studies are conducted.
One is known as Adsell. This telephone survey, conducted by McGraw-Hill’s Laboratory of Advertising Performance unit, tells advertisers within 8-10 weeks what subscribers thought after reading their ads. It reveals that if subscribers did read an ad, whether that ad created awareness, aroused interest, built preference and kept customers sold. The purpose of the study, says Ross, is to find out what happened after the ad was seen and read, in other words, "did it move readers closer to the sale."
Harvey Research Organization, Inc., specialists in communications research projects in Rochester, NY, also conducts personal interview studies for McGraw-Hill with 100 EC&M subscribers from around the country. This research technique measures the percent of subscribers who recall seeing a particular ad and the percent who recall reading it. The scores show advertisers the effectiveness of their ad's readership.
Comments, please
What's particularly special and interesting about this survey is that part of it enables the respondents to make personal comments about the ads. Ross considers this information equally important as the standardized portion of the questionnaire, information of great interest to McGraw-Hill's sales people as well as the advertising agencies.
"We get some real believable feedback this way and sometimes some very useful information for creative people at ad agencies," notes Ross.
Measuring interest
The primary media research study conducted for Electrical Wholesaling, a marketing magazine read by electrical wholesale distributors, is called Readex. Readex measures subscribers' interest in both the magazines' editorial articles and its advertising.
The survey, which is conducted twice a year for McGraw-Hill by a St. Paul, Minn., research firm, measures two different issues of Electrical Wholesaling. A sample of 100 readers is mailed an issue of the magazine, along with a questionnaire.
The questionnaire asks the respondents to mark all of the editorial features and advertising in the magazine that they found interesting. The respondents are then asked to send back the magazine and questionnaire for tabulation.
"The point of this study is to get some kind of feedback on one particular advertisement," says Ross. "An advertiser usually won't see immediate sales increases as a result of one ad in their advertising campaign, however. Total advertising effectiveness is something that can only be measured over a long period of time."
Still another research method McGraw-Hill employs for EC&M as well as Electrical Wholesaling is before and after advertising studies. According to Ross, the purpose of these studies is to measure the gross results of the advertising campaign in whatever measurement terms are established by the advertiser.
Two direct-mail surveys are conducted for the client. The benchmark (before) survey may serve to determine subscribers' familiarity with the client prior to an ad campaign and the second, follow-up survey may measure the changes in awareness of the magazines' subscribers toward the client.
The advertiser assumes the cost of the benchmark study and McGraw-Hill covers the cost of the follow-up. As many as six advertising studies are conducted each year, all at the expressed interest of the client.
Market research
"To gather information about the market that the magazines serve" is the whole objective behind the market research Ross conducts and oversees for EC&M and Electrical Wholesaling.
According to Ross, the "most used study we do for EC&M and the one which has the greatest acceptability by our advertisers" is the Brand Preference Study.
The BPS, a free service to advertisers, is conducted yearly among samples of the three reader groups which EC&M serves. A direct-mail, open-ended questionnaire is sent to a volunteer panel made up of these individuals. In the questionnaire, respondents are asked to list manufacturers whom they consider when making equipment decisions and to indicate some of the reasons why they prefer the different brands. This latter portion of the study allows the respondents to make a judgment on the advertisers' product, says Ross.
"It judges the sellers marketing performance in general and is weighted toward the quality of the product itself."
While the first portion of the study provides valuable information to the advertiser, often the "meat" of the survey lies in the second part.
"The first portion tells advertisers what product brands each panel member prefers. But the last portion tells advertisers why the respondents rated the brands the way they did. It can provide answers to such questions as 'Why are we tops?' or 'Why are we losing our share of preference?' It lets them know what the perceptions are out there."
Although the Brand Preference Survey, which typically yields a 40-50% response rate, is conducted every year, survey results on any particular product are available every other year. The results of over 70 products are shown and put in a bar chart, says Ross, so that advertisers can track the history of their brands and competing brands over a nine year period.
Yet another type of market research study conducted recently for EC&M is the Audience Profile Study. This was conducted among a sample of EC&M subscribers to determine their attitudes and opinions toward their organization, work, electrical equipment and the magazine itself.
Assessing performance
The Distributor Opinion Survey is the primary study conducted for Electrical Wholesaling. The objective of this survey is to help manufacturers assess their performance with their wholesale distributors, says Ross. Specifically, the survey objective is to determine how electrical wholesalers rate the product lines they handle on 12 factors that are important to the manufacturer-distributor relationship. The findings of the survey are available to those manufacturers who have 20 mentions in the survey.
Notes Ross, "What these manufacturers learn is how their distributors rate their performance and the performance of competing manufacturers."