AEROSPACE MARKETING Rotorcraft Publications… …what do people read, and why? A BDN Aerospace Marketing White Paper Publishers tell their own tale about why their publication is the best place to put your advertising dollars. We wanted to know what the readership thinks — so we asked them and 1,000+ gave us their thoughts. Are magazines dead? Is Twitter the new paradigm? Before we got into the particulars about rotorcraft publications, we asked about the various media available and if they play a role in a person’s professional life. The short answer: the magazine rules and Twitter drools. Respondents overwhelmingly use Magazines as a medium for staying current with their profession, leading the second-place contender, Daily/Weekly E-mail newsletters, by a wide margin, 94.3% to 64.8%. Sixty percent use Manufacturer’s web sites, more than half go to News web sites, but Newspapers are turned to by fewer than 39% of respondents. That’s it for the heavy hitters. Social Media fare poorly among respondents, with Facebook/MySpace/Etc. ranking barely a third as many users as even Newspapers, with 13.3% using them. Blogs draw a little over half that, at 7.2%, LinkedIn/Spoke/Etc. garner only 6.3%, 4.6% use RSS feeds, and Twitter pulls up the rear with a mere 1 in 40 respondents turning to it for business — 2.6%. We allowed respondents to add their own media or methods and the most common response was some form of direct, personal interaction — sometimes meaning speaking directly to a company’s rep, but mostly talking to friends, co-workers, or others in the field. Internet forums were the second most frequent addition. So, Magazines are the medium of choice for professional currency, turned to by 9.5 out of 10 respondents, and by 50% more users than E-mail newsletters, the second-most favored medium. Manufacturer and News web sites draw a bit more than half of the respondents, making them worthy of note. some, though not to us at BDN — strong imagery draws viewers, no matter the medium. Enjoy the Personal Stories and Learn About People each attracted a bit under 50% of the respondents, with Enjoy the Opinions cited by 43%, the lowest of the choices presented. The open-ended answers we received covered a wide gamut, with no striking convergence. Avionics and new technology were cited by a few, as were pricing, profitability, and business issues in general. Press releases and classified ads made a showing, as did “…see what the competition is up to.” So Ops and Products are the draw for 8 or more of 10 respondents, while Photography draws two-thirds. Still, each of the six reasons that were presented showed strong support. But what do readers find important? We asked. The role of the magazine Readers turn to magazines for multiple reasons, and while for their favorite magazines the most frequently cited reason was to Learn About Operations or to Learn About Products (86% and 80% respectively), the number three reason given was to Enjoy the Photography, cited by 2 out of 3 respondents. This “soft” rationale may be surprising to bdnaerospace.com Copyright © 2009 by BDN Aerospace Marketing, all rights reserved. 20091014 next page