A few weeks ago, we were presenting the results of an annual campaign for a client in the tea business. Before the pandemic, in 2018-2019, we’d also completed a one-year contract for the company's 20th anniversary. We got excellent feedback, because for any company, a 20th anniversary is a noteworthy achievement, and plenty of media outlets were sharing the story of this tea house.
Once our 2021-2022 report for that client was finished, I was able to do a comparison with the previous contract. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the results had increased tenfold, with virtually the same number of articles and mentions.
So, I took the time to break down our results – which suddenly seemed unusual. Had we made mistakes in our math?
No indeed! No mistakes. We usually only compare our results with the previous year, so it’s rare for us to do a comparison that goes back two or three years, as we did in this case.
Here’s what I learned:
All the traditional media (newspapers, magazines) and websites have seen a massive increase in their online readership (subscribers) since the pandemic.
And those readers have kept up their online reading habits.
This probably seems obvious to you; we all know that internet use exploded during Covid. Still, I hadn’t accurately measured the difference: a growth factor of 10 for this agrifood client.
I also made some comparisons with clients in the beauty sectors, where some companies increased their readership by a factor of more than 10.
According to the most recent Vividata* study, released in October 2021:
Digital reading continues to grow, with 58% of readers accessing digital content via a mobile device (smartphone or tablet).
Twenty-one million adults (69%) read/accessed magazine brand content in an average month, with food, travel, health/fitness, nature, and entertainment/celebrity magazines remaining the most popular.
In the past five years, the mobile audience for digital magazine content has risen as well; 21% of adults accessed digital magazine content on a mobile device in Fall 2016, increasing to 31% in Fall 2021.
In an average week, two out of five adults read/accessed community newspaper content via print or digital platforms, with higher rates of readership occurring in communities with a population under 100,000.
For those who read and listen to us regularly, you know I often say that public relations are a very powerful tool. And there’s no better way to boost your search engine optimization (SEO). So! Now you know that PR is more powerful than ever, and major media outlets are seeing more and more readers access their content on a mobile device. Here’s what Vividata revealed:
59% of Newspaper Brands readers access newspaper content on a mobile device.
I love looking at the major media’s social media, where I can see their content at a glance. Forbes, The New York Times, Le Monde and others are using Instagram and TikTok really creatively to draw readers to the articles published on their websites. And for all those reasons, nothing can replace public relations. And it makes me happy to see that our clients are also benefiting from online growth thanks to our services.Join me and sign up to our lists and training sessions where I show you step-by-step public relations tactics that you can implement immediately.GET PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT YOU, FOR FREEhttps://prschool.natapr.com/evergreen_frTHE FREE NATA PR MODELhttps://prschool.natapr.com/Le-Modele-NATA-PR* NEW MEDIA CANADA: https://nmc-mic.ca/2021/12/02/digital-newspaper-readership-continues-to-grow-research-shows/