Following on from its rebrand announced today, Magazine Networks has given B&T exclusive access to its research, which is forming the centre piece of its message to advertisers and marketers that magazines are a genuine cross-platform solution and above all are aggregators of highly engaged, motivated and influential communities.
The survey solicited responses from readers across six categories – food, lifestyle, fashion, health, home and weeklies. Readers were divided in each category by whether they read magazines in print, online or both. The largest survey group was for weeklies with 1228 readers in total. The smallest was health with 244 readers.
In the monthly categories, of those who claimed to read print magazines monthly, 63 per cent said they also read online magazines. However of those who claimed to read online magazines once a month, 77 per cent said they also read online magazines monthly.
For weeklies, the cross over was lower but still significant with 63 per cent of those that claim to read a magazine online weekly saying they also read a print magazine weekly. Again print readers were less likely to read online as well, but still more likely than not with 56 per cent of print readers saying they also read their weeklies online.
Perhaps of more significance to marketers looking to embrace the cross channel potential of magazines, 46 per cent of print magazine readers said they went online to visit a magazine’s online elements or to further research a product they had seen.
Other findings included that readers are 22 per cent more likely to be influenced by ads if they read magazines across print and online, are 24 per cent more likely to be influenced by recommended or featured products, and tend to have a better response to a magazine if it has been consumed across channels.
Making a strong case for magazine readers being a valuable target audience, the research found that magazine readers spend 29 per cent more on their interests than average Australians. Online magazine readers in particular were a valuable audience sector spending 40 per cent more on their interests than the average Australian.
Similarly, magazine readers are 18 per cent more likely to post on social media than other media consumers and are also more vocal about the products they use thus making them more likely to be influencers.
