Blog: Online readers survey

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Last month we put out a survey for our online readers and supporters asking for your views on our print magazine and its future. We would first of all like to extend a huge thank you to all those who took part, the response was great and it means a lot to us having the business community involved in the decision making process here at Business Cornwall magazine.

We thought we would use this post to bring up some of the recurring themes from your answers and also to let you see some of the results yourselves.

In our first question we asked how our readers get their business news, this including the many facets of Business Cornwall (twitter, daily digest etc.) as well as external press and services. The results suggested that the majority of Business Cornwall’s online readers also read the magazine as well as other local papers, with just over half of responders using the social media platforms to access local news.

When asked about your favourite parts of the magazine the clear winners were the Last Word and the News Digest.

Another trend in this section, which was great to see, was the amount of people letting us know how they use the news sections to see what peers and potential clients are doing and how this can give a potential advantage in their businesses.

We moved onto looking at the future of Business Cornwall and asked you what it is you would like to see more of in the magazine.

One of the most prevalent answers was the desire to see more features, something that we are very aware of and is key in our business model moving forwards. Keep your eye open for new features arriving soon.

We also had many people asking to see more from the under-represented sectors, such as Engineering which is something we would also like to flag up. We would love to run stories on every industry but to put it simply, we don’t get sent many and what we don’t have we cannot print. So please, if you would like to see more content about your industry of choice, get in touch, let us know what’s going on and we will happily cover your sector in the magazine.

Another key area of interest is peer to peer information sharing and advice. We will be taking this on board and hoping to bring you more content in this vein in the new year, as we agree that it is important to see how fellow business people are tackling the challenges you may also be facing.

When asked what you would like to see less of in the magazine, the responses were extremely varied and often completely counteracted the previous question. This shows that we have a diverse readership with different interests and opinions which is the key to any successful business community, however, it also means it can be tough for us to constantly appeal to everyone, though we do our best to keep the magazine balanced and impartial.

Generally, readers were happy with the way the magazine was progressing with the only other noticeable trend being the advertising and advertorial we carry, though most people who mentioned it also understood our reasoning and business model.

Business Cornwall survives almost entirely on the support of the companies that we in turn support year round with press releases and news sections for free, both online and in the magazine. These advertisers are the reason we can keep doing what we are doing and we have found a balance of ads and editorial which we hope does not impact on the enjoyment of the magazine. As I am sure you have noticed, we have now started to charge for new subscriptions to the magazine and this is the first stage in the process to be able to bring you more high quality editorial and a bigger, better magazine.

Finally we asked our readers if they had any other comments about the magazine, giving you free reign to let us know how you think we are doing. Rather than reviewing these (as the topics vary so much) I will leave you with some choice responses. Thank you,

“Pleased we have it; delighted you’re hanging in there in what must be a tough time – others have tried it but didn’t see it through. You do a terrific job, keep it up.”

“KEEP doing what you are doing – Cornwall is dynamic, diverse and creative – people work hard and don’t often have the luxury of sitting down and reading from cover to cover – the mix you have really works – the daily news is excellent and I read it every day (honestly!!!!!)”

“Enjoy reading the daily updates and then keep the magazine in our reception for visitors to read.”