There are two things any media outlet can’t do without: readers and advertisers. If either one of them goes away, our ability to deliver the products and services you expect from us gets significantly harder at the very least and might go away completely in a worst-case scenario.
So, while we don’t base every editorial decision we make on the results of our annual readers’ surveys, it’s always nice to hear from them to either confirm we’re doing everything they want to keep them satisfied or tell us we need to explore news ways of delivering the type of stuff they want to read.
Certainly, the response group to our annual readers’ survey doesn’t represent the entire breadth and depth of our total readership pool, but we think those who are willing to take the time to share their thoughts with us deserve some sort of credit for their honesty and thoughtfulness in shaping CI.
After all, if we didn’t value our readers’ opinions, we probably wouldn’t seek them out to help us shape our editorial strategy or give us a better sense of what they’re seeing in the field so we can better gauge if what we’re hearing is what’s really happening across the AV landscape.
Inside the 2020 CI Readers’ Survey
The 2020 CI readers’ survey confirmed some of what we already knew but also offered some interesting insights about what you want to see more often—and even what you don’t want to see as often.
It’s nice to know about 60 percent of this year’s survey respondents consider CI “the single most relevant and useful information resource” for their businesses and find it especially gratifying that more than 75% became aware of a product or service because of CI and 60 percent visited an advertiser’s site.
More than half of this year’s respondents copied or forwarded an article they read on CI to colleagues or customers and over one-third of them identified new market opportunities or purchased a product or service because of their interaction with CI this year.
It wasn’t a huge surprise to learn that new products and industry news attracted about two-thirds of the eyeballs among our readers’ survey respondents this year, with almost 60 percent saying they come to CI for technology advice and about 45 percent saying they like our business/management advice most.
About one-third of readers this year said they like the company or people profiles we write most, while about 30 percent like the contributed content from integrators more than anything else we do.
Related: What Does AV-Over-IP Mean for Your Business? Take Our 5-Minute Survey.
Less than 20 percent value our blogs and opinion pieces most, but it’s unclear if that’s as simple as those readers having different opinions from me and the rest of the CI editorial team or if they don’t want to hear our opinions at all.
In that vein, when I give my opinion, it’s with the knowledge that I’ve never pulled any cable, mounted a display or commissioned a product on the jobsite, but I think to think I’ve learned enough in nine-plus years with CI to know what our readers care about and to give my opinions on those topics.
In terms of content our readers most like to consume, we had an interesting dichotomy in this year’s readers’ survey with more than 60 percent saying they like the in-depth pieces we write and the same percentage saying they prefer to read our quick-hit articles.
Webinars and whitepapers each attracted more than 25 percent of survey respondents most this year, while video content is the preferred delivery method for about 20 percent of you. Clearly, we need to step up our AV Plus podcast game since that was a favorite of just more than 10 percent of readers.
There are plenty more facts and figures for us to dig through in this year’s CI readers’ survey but that at least give you a taste of what people want more and less of from us going forward and help you figure out whether you agree.
Even if you missed the chance to give your opinions in this year’s readers’ survey, I’m always open to suggestions, although I can’t promise we’ll be willing or able to do everything our readers want. Please let me know what you think about what we’re doing. I welcome your feedback, good or bad.
