Chances are that your business school magazine is one of the most expensive projects for your marketing communications team. The investment includes staff (or outside) writing and editing, photographers, designers. multimedia producers, paper, postage, printing and more. So why don’t you have any meaningful metrics?

We are practically drowning in data from our digital communications, while print materials do not yield the same information. Most marketing communication practitioners blithely make decisions about their magazine without any data at all, other than some anecdotal remarks from an email or in a hallway.

The solution is a readership survey. Readership surveys yield data that can help you make important decisions about your publication, such as:

Let’s not forget another very important potential use of readership survey data. It may provide you with evidence showing how well you are doing your job—and that you are approaching it as a professional. Perhaps this will garner respect and hopefully, a good performance review!

Seven Steps to Performing a Readership Survey

Let’s face it. Distributing a survey isn’t a big challenge, but designing the survey correctly is crucial and analyzing the data takes many staff hours. Here are the steps:

  1. Design the readership survey (I’ve included a downloadable example for Academic Connections subscribers).
  2. Distribute the readership survey
  3. Analyze the data for insights
  4. Make decisions based on the insights
  5. Share the insights
  6. Enact changes
  7. Keep the survey and results to be used again in the future

1. Design the Readership Survey

Subscribers to Academic Connections are free to use the downloadable readership survey example. I’ve done readership surveys for decades, informed by many professional and educational resources (and sometimes trial and error). The first iterations were printed on paper and gummed into the magazine itself. This does not usually yield a large enough sample size. For several years now, email has been the most effective distribution, linking to an online survey built on software such as Qualtrics.

Specifically, Qualtrics has tools to help you understand sample size requirements, margin of error, confidence level (also called “confidence interval”) and validity of questions.

About Sample Size

Make sure you get enough responses to be within an acceptable confidence level and margin of error. Use the tools you can find at Qualtrics to help you. The sample size (margin of error) tool is located at this link: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/calculating-sample-size/. Simply plug in your magazine circulation number to calculate how many responses you need to be at an acceptable margin of error.

The screen shot below shows an example of a magazine that is distributed to 45,000 readers (“population size”). The tool tells us that the readership survey must have 381 responses to achieve 95% confidence and a 5% margin of error.

What if you don’t get 381 responses? Let’s say the survey in this example yielded only 68 responses.

This number of respondents (68) achieves a confidence level of only 90% and a margin of error of 10%, which is not acceptable in my opinion. However, work with whatever you can get! Obviously, a confidence level of at least 95% and a margin of error of no more than 5% are ideal, but sometimes you just work with whatever data you can get. Just make sure you communicate these numbers when you share the data (step 4).

I agree with the Qualtrics guidance on this situation:

Depending on your target audience, you may not be able to get enough responses (or a large enough sample size) to achieve “statistically significant” results.

If it’s for your own research and not a wider study, it might not be that much of a problem, but remember that any feedback you get from your surveys is important. It might not be statistically significant, but it can aid your activities going forward.

Ultimately, you should treat this on a case-by-case basis. Survey samples can still give you valuable answers without having sample sizes that represent the general population. (Source: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/calculating-sample-size/)

2. Distribute the Survey

Email the survey to the same list which you mail magazines. Also share the link within your school’s social media communities, newsletters, screen signage, etc.

Keep the survey open for a few weeks to collect responses. Check in every once in a while to make sure you are getting sufficient responses from various segments of your readership, which probably includes alumni, students, prospective students, faculty, administrators, deans of other business schools, corporate recruiters, donors, etc. If responses from a certain group of readers is low, push more messaging about the survey out to that group.

3. Analyze the Data for Insights

Close the survey and review the responses. There will probably be a few things that come to your attention right away. For instance, in every readership survey I did over two decades for the Baylor Business Review, I was pleasantly surprised to see that more than 90% of respondents reported they took some kind of action (see readership survey question 13) after reading an article in the magazine! When your readers tell you your content evoked actions such as attending an event, calling a professor, sharing it with coworkers and friends, and other engagements, it is a testament to the power of your magazine.

Look at each of your audience segments’ responses. Are faculty loving it, but students aren’t? Are alumni from the 90s more positive than other decades of alumni? Slice and dice the data to get deeper insights.

4. Make Decisions Based on the Insights

Before you make decisions about what you see, it’s important for you to remind yourself of the purpose of your magazine. In my experience at Baylor, the magazine had to serve a myriad of audience segments. Your magazine may have a more confined audience and mission, setting your priorities differently.

With your priorities in mind, let the data inform your decision-making. This can be a challenge if you are defensive about negative comments or results. Be open to what the data say. Facts are our friends! What changes can you implement to rectify weaknesses or enhance strengths? Don’t be afraid to step outside of traditions. Be brave.

Some examples:

5. Share the Data and Insights

Report your results and actions you recommend be taken. Put this in a professional presentation or report. Share it with your supervisor (usually the dean). Don’t try to present every point of data. Only share the most important—include both good and bad—that will back up your recommended changes. Don’t fret about sharing negative comments in that report. Be honest with yourself and others. It’s the only way you can know what decisions should be implemented in the service of making your magazine even better.

And if all of your results are off-the-chart fabulous, then I suggest you use the opportunity to have a great performance review, ask for a promotion, or ask for raise, because you have empirical evidence that you are excellent at your job!

6. Enact the Changes

Make the changes and own them. You have the data on your side!

Inform your readers. Write an article for the next publication issue that describes the results of the survey and what has been addressed or changed due to the insights from respondents. Here is an example of a Baylor Business Review article explaining the readership survey results to readers.

7. Keep the Survey and Results to Be Used Again in the Future

Congratulations! You now have a baseline. Save the survey and the results. Use the same survey again at a later date so you can measure the differences. See if the changes you made had an impact on the data.

How often should you survey your readership? I suggest every two to three years. In my experience, surveying readership every year leads to survey burnout and low responses.

Don’t forget, if you need some assistance in the readership survey process, I’m here to help you as a consultant on the project. Contact me at CJ@AcademicConnectionsLLC.com or 210-552-9924 to chat about your needs.