Accountancy Ireland Readership Survey : Report on the Findings of our April survey
Author:
Daisy Downes
Following the re-launch of Accountancy Ireland earlier this year, we launched an online Readership Survey in our April issue, inviting your feedback on our new look, and in particular your views of the range and quality of our content. We were very pleased with the responses received and want to thank everyone who took the time to participate. Below is a short report of some of what you told us.
CONTENT RATING
We asked you to rate our content in key areas including
-Financial Reporting
-Auditing
-Corporate Finance
-Taxation
-Managing your Business
-Directors’ Desk
-General Features
-Information Technology
Overall the ratings were very good, particularly in the ‘core’ subjects like Financial Reporting, Auditing, and Taxation.
In Financial Reporting, for instance, an impressive 96% of respondents rated our content “Excellent” or “Good”. Auditing was not far behind on 95%. While, tax - an area where we have increased our coverage this year - achieved 84%.
Obviously the challenge for us over the coming months is to turn more of the “Good” ratings into “Excellent”, and to work at getting those percentages even higher, but the results so far are encouraging.
In the broader areas that we cover, 83% of respondents rated our Directors’ Desk section “Excellent” or “Good”, General Features and Information Technology got 82%, but our Economic section was below 80% on just 78.4%. This is clearly an area of interest to readers, and one where we we will be working to improve our ratings.
RELYING ON US
Over 76% of respondents agreed with the statement “Accountancy Ireland keeps me up to date with the latest Standards and Technical Information”.
MORE PLEASE
Having asked what you like and dislike about our current content, we then asked what you would like to see more of in future issues. Some respondents mentioned specific industry sectors but apart from that, the results were fairly evenly divided (see chart above) with News, Technical articles, and Lifestyle features rating just a bit ahead of Reader Offers and People Profiles.
Coverage of Institute news and events trailed the field - (and we thought you loved our Disciplinary Reports and Official Notices!).
WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR COPY
The majority of respondents keep their copy of Accountancy Ireland indefinitely. Of those of you who dispose of the magazine, most are recycling it although some of you are passing it on to colleagues at work, and / or to friends or family.
WHAT ELSE ARE YOU READING?
Responses to our question about what other magazines you read reflected the diversity of interests out there. Amongst the titles mentioned, we had everything from Swedish Orienteering magazines to the journal of An Bord Altranais. Hot Press got a couple of mentions, as did Phoenix, The Irish Garden, National Geographic. It was good to see some signs of girl power out there and we salute our Cosmo and Marie Claire readers. On the business side, the for the most part those of you who are regular readers of other business magazines opt for The Economist.
ABOUT YOU!
We wanted to know a bit about those of you who had taken the time and trouble to answer our survey. 88.5% of respondents were aged under 45, and 62% of respondents were male
A WORD TO OUR ADVERTISERS
48.5% of respondents agreed that the advertising in Accountancy Ireland “gives me useful product information”. This is broadly in line with the findings of independent research commissioned by the Periodical Publishers Association of Ireland (PPA) in 2003.
Our jobs pages got particularly good ratings with 58% of respondents indicating they “always read the recruitment pages”