First Look at Pennwell's 2008 Digital Survey: What's Changed Since 2004?

By Gloria Adams
Senior VP, Audience Development and Book Publishing, PennWell

This marks the fourth year that PennWell has been surveying readers who opt to receive our B-to-B publications in digital magazine format.

In sharing these new 2008 survey findings, it seems appropriate to provide context as to what's been consistent and what's changed during these four eventful years.

Obviously, research prior to rolling out the digital option on 17 of our titles in October 2004 had given us confidence in digital's potential benefits for readers, advertisers and publishers alike. And our reader surveys over the years as we've expanded the format's availability to 36 PennWell titles—as well as the results of other industry studies—have both confirmed those benefits and taught us a great deal about the process.

Tracking reader attitudes and behaviors over time has documented patterns we now all take for granted as typical, even predictable, for digital versions. For example...Adoption builds quickly within the first two years after a digital version is introduced, and then naturally levels off—generally at somewhere between about 15% and 25% of total circulation.

We also know that higher adoption rates are common among high-tech and timeliness-focused markets—and that in a few markets where business people are rarely near computers during the day, there's little demand for a digital version.

Results on Core Questions Have Held Up

As with any ongoing survey series, percentages tied to some specific reader questions have fluctuated up and down to some degree over the years. We've also expanded and honed some survey questions over time, and our results have become more reliable and meaningful as the numbers of digital readers and survey respondents have grown substantially each year.

Our first survey in 2004 spanned a few hundred digital-version respondents across a handful of titles, while the 2008 results are based on more than 6,300 respondents across the 36 titles, two of which are digital-only. (At least 4,000 respondents answered every non-optional question.)

But most important from advertisers' perspective—and critical to the ongoing viability of the digital format—most of the core reader questions have remained the same, and the responses to these have been remarkably consistent. By "core" I mean reader involvement indicators such as time spent with the digital publication and propensity to take various actions in response to the editorial and advertising content.

Bottom line: On all key involvement indicators, levels for the digital format have matched and sometimes exceeded levels for readers who continue to prefer the print format.

Some key examples:

• Time spent: In 2004, average reported time spent with a digital edition was 39 minutes (compared to 41 minutes for print). This year, average time spent with digital was 30 minutes—this despite the reality that all B-to-B professionals have become more information–saturated and time–challenged with each passing year.



• Number of issues read: In 2004, 26% reported having read three out of the last four digital issues, compared to 14% of print readers. In that first year, more print readers did report reading four out of four (64% versus 49% of digital readers). But by 2006, digital was outperforming print on both scores, with 57% of digital versus 45% of print readers reporting reading four out of four issues, and 18% of digital versus 16% of print readers reading three out of four.
  
  This year—again, despite the growing time crunch/info overload factors—25% reported reading three out of four of their digital issues, and nearly 40% reported reading four out of four. In addition, three-quarters (75%) reported having read the most recent digital issue.
  
  After 2006, we decided that the print/digital comparative trends were clear and consistent enough that it wasn’t necessary or resource-efficient to do a formal, parallel survey of print readers across all titles every year. However, we've continued to do print-reader surveys on some titles, and these have confirmed that the digital reader patterns continue to stand up to compare favorably to print patterns.



• Depth of reading: As to how people read digital editions, back in '04, 37% reported reading the table of contents and articles of interest; 35% reported reading articles of interest and looking through the remaining pages; and 11% reported reading them cover–to–cover. This year, the respective comparative percentages were 50%, 54% and 14%.



• Actions taken: In the critical area of actions taken as a result of reading articles or advertisements in digital editions, here are the '04 versus '08 comparisons on the questions that were asked in both years:
  
  What Actions Have You Taken as a Result of Reading Articles or Ads?
  (Check all that apply.)
  
  

  Action	2004	2008
  Clicked on ad to go to company's site	60%	61%
  Purchased product or service	11%	17%
  Recommended purchase of product/service	17%	27%
  Contacted an advertiser to get more info*	13%	32%
  Discussed an article with others**	58%	55%
  Archived issue for future reference	64%	69%

  
  * In '04, action was worded as "called" an advertiser to get more information.
  **In '04, action was worded "discussed article or ad" with others.



• Uses/benefits: Looking at how digital readers use and benefit from these editions, here are the comparisons:
  
  How Do You Use Your Digital Edition? (Check all that apply.)
  
  

  Use or Benefit	2004	2008
  Get information that helps me do job better	84%	82%
  Obtain essential product information	43%	48%
  Get information that helps me make purchasing decisions	28%	30%
  Contacted an advertiser to get more info	13%	32%
  Identify potential products and services	65%	59%




• Overall satisfaction: What about "overall satisfaction" with digital editions? While we don't have data going back to 2004, the responses from the two most recent surveys speak for themselves:
  
  Please Rate Your Overall Satisfaction With This Digital Publication:
  
  

  	2007	2008
  Very satisfied	33%	35%
  Satisfied	58%	56%
  Neutral	8%	8%
  Dissatisfied	1%	1%
  Very dissatisfied	<1%	<1%

In addition to the stability or improvement of core reader research metrics, it's important to note that PennWell's experience has been that renewal rates for digital editions certainly match, and often exceed, those for print editions.

New Insights from 2008 Results

So, if core metrics relating to readers' perceptions and use of digital editions have by and large not changed, what has changed in the last year or two?

Here are highlights—some based on questions added this year or last, some revealing changes in priorities or behaviors as indicated by shifts in responses to existing questions:

• Archiving and searchability remain top reasons for choosing digital magazines...but environmental friendliness is now #2. Here are the last two surveys' results on the "why choose digital" question:
  
  Why Do You Subscribe to This Digital Publication? (Check all that apply.)
  
  

  	2007	2008
  Easy to save	65%	67%
  Environmentally friendly	56%	61%
  Ability to search issues	51%	52%
  Easy to forward	48%	48%
  More timely than print	43%	45%
  More convenient than print	40%	42%
  Prefer reading on computer	30%	34%
  Other	6%	6%

  
  
  To double-check the importance of the green factor, this year, we also included a separate question asking: "How important is it that your digital edition is friendly to the environment/green?" Results: Nearly three-quarters (73% combined) said that this is either "important" (38%) or "very important" (35%). Another 20% were "neutral"; 2% deemed this "less important"; and just 5% considered it "not important."



• How many digital (and print) titles do digital readers receive? In 2007, we began asking readers how many publications they now receive in digital format, and how many they receive in print (all titles, not just PennWell publications).
  
  Looking at B-to-B publications, the average number of digital magazines received was 3.4 last year and 3.6 this year. Meanwhile, the average number of print B-to-B publications was 3.0 last year and 2.8 this year.
  
  I'm not about to claim a definite trend based on two years of responses, but it will be intriguing to see if this seeming uptrend in digital titles and downtrend in print titles continues.
  
  We also asked how many general interest/consumer magazines these readers receive in digital and print. Here, the averages were the same in both 2007 and 2008: 1.1 digital consumer titles and 2.1 print consumer titles. The digital numbers aren’t surprising, given the considerably lesser uptake of digital thus far on the consumer side.



• Use/acceptance of “rich media” within digital magazines is growing. Again, we started tracking this in '07. Here are the results for the two years:
  
  Do You Value "Rich Media" Enhancements to the Digital Magazine
  Content? (Summary of “Yes” responses for each type of rich media)
  
  

  	2007	2008
  Audio clips	33%	37%
  Video clips	58%	61%
  Animation	48%	51%
  Interactive surveys	37%	39%




• Digital magazine readers prefer online to print for a variety of types of business information. However, sizable percentages still prefer to have both options. Here are the results for the 2008 survey (the results were extremely similar in 2007):
  
  
What is Your Preferred Medium (Print/Online/Both) For:





• They read their digital editions both online and by downloading. Asked in both '07 and '08 how they prefer to read their digital magazine editions, over half said "downloaded to computer," about 20% said "online," and one–quarter said "both." In other words, these readers are about equally likely to read online as to download for reading purposes.



• How are digital magazine readers' use of print and a variety of other, "new" media changing? Here are the results from this year's survey. (Again, on this question, last year's results were extremely similar.)


How Has Your Use of These Media Changed in the Last Year?
(%s indicating declined/same/increased in 2008 vs. 2007)



Clearly, these digital magazine readers are indicating declining use of print media, continued robust growth in reliance on Web sites and enewsletters, and continuing (albeit less marked) growth in their use of various types of other digitally based formats.