Pass along readers

Interesting conversation with a client yesterday. He said he's never really believed any publication's claims of "pass-along" readership which, as you may know, is a critical portion of any business-to-business newspaper's readership.

Here at the Grand Rapids Business Journal, we print 7,000 copies each week. Each copy is read by 2.9 people beyond the primary subscriber (3.9 readers per issue total), amounting to 27,300 total readers each week. As usual, a business may only have one subscription but a number of poeple read it.

That pass-along rate question is asked every two years during third-party independent research by Readex Corporation and has been very steady in the 2.8-3.0 range for 16 years.

Here's an analogy that makes the most sense to me:

If you buy a radio ad, and four people in a room hear it on the radio, do you count the number of radios (the medium) or the number of listeners (the audience)? Of course, the number of listeners are what's important -- not the number of radios.

The same is true with print. The number of papers is less important than the number of readers.

In the b2b world, pass-along readership should not be dismissed. It is a critical portion of our total audience.