Hitting the ad page wall; business press revenues are growing, but pages are not. Can the industry recoup the ad page growth of yesteryear?

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 1989 by Jean Marie Angelo

"No longer can we go in with large rate increases and expect advertisers to absorb them," says Staudt of Vance. The advertiser's demands are the reason why rate pressures came about.

Indeed, Chilton, Cahners, CMP Publications, Penton, Vance, North American Publishing and countless others have added some type of support services for advertisers. Anderson Lembke sadly quotes a study that says 72 percent of the leads brought in from a business magazine are not followed up. Even though this is the fault of the advertiser, business magazine companies are building in systems that take the initiative in following up, which improves the chance of sale and enhances the image of the business press.

Chilton, for example, has set up four separate services to offer "value added" products to its advertisers. For starters, there is Ad Chart, a service that measures advertising awareness. Readers are asked: Did you see this ad? What action did you take?

In addition, Chilton offers Focus, a face to face product testing service for advertisers. The company conducts 100 interviews in 10 major markets on its advertisers' new products. "We can ask what they think of a new belt for an engine, or a rust inhibitor for a plant," says White. The publisher can also test ad copy and pricing strategies for its clients. Advertisers pay for the service, explains White.

Chilton also offers research on their advertisers' markets. The company's Magazine Advertising Information Center includes 600 databases that advertisers can access. The company also offers a direct marketing service that includes telemarketing. Callers contact those who have sent in reader service cards, explains White.

In addition, ABC purchased P.E.M.C.O., a trade show company, in 1986 to expand the base with advertisers.

Chilton is not alone in its attention to support services. Penton offers research, direct marketing and has some trade show activity, notes Marino. Penton also offers a "value added program," which allows an advertiser in any publication to receive credits that can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, the credits can go toward more advertising pages, or toward a stay at Penton's golf and tennis resort in Florida, an appealing place to hold sales meetings.

Cahners, too, offers similar research, direct marketing and trade show products. In addition, the company has a "space credit" incentive that allows advertisers who buy more than $250,000 worth of space to get a percentage of free page space in the future, explains Peter Boniface, vice president, national accounts, publisher of Cahners Magazine Network. The company also supplies the Cahners Economic Forecast, which spots trends for its advertising clients.

Another tactic is to offer more advertising opportunities. Penton, which finished 1988 with a flat year for its magazines, picked up several hundred pages of advertising through supplements. The company prepared and scheduled the same supplement to run in all of its magazines that cover heavy industry, for example.