Industry-specific magazines offer a wealth of information on your business and your market. Business magazines are an important source of business information. Aside from the major general-interest business publications (Business Week, Wall Street Journal, etc.) there are many specialty publications that look at specific industries.
Specialization is an important trend in the publishing business. Dingbats and Widgets may be boring to the general public, but they are exciting to Dingbat and Widget manufacturers who read about them regularly in their specialized magazines. The magazines are an important medium for industry-specific advertising, which is important to readers as well as advertisers.
The editorial staffs of these magazines have to fill the space between the ads. They do that by publishing as much industry-specific information as they can find, including statistics, forecasts, and industry profiles. Paging through one of these magazines or visiting a website can sometimes produce a great deal of business and marketing forecasting, and economic information.
Finding the Right Publications
If you don't already know what magazines focus on your business area, then the best place to start looking is on the Internet:
- Start with searching the Yahoo! listing of magazines.
- Probably the most established and respected source on associations in the Ulrich's Periodical's Directory, located on the R.R.Bowker website, is one of the largest listings of magazines, available hard copy (ask your library reference section, because it's expensive) and online.
- The Audit Bureau of Circulation is another source you can look for in library reference. If you have any association with an advertising agency, ask them to loan it to you for a few hours.
- Enews.com offers a good list of magazines along with free trial issues.
For traditional printed directories, several good reference sources list magazines, journals, and other publications. They also offer indexes to published articles which you can use to search for the exact references you need. These will be kept in the reference section of most libraries.
- Readers Guide to Periodical Literature indexes popular magazines. Published by H.W. Wilson of New York. Available in most library reference sections.
- Business Periodicals Index, also published by H.W. Wilson of New York. Indexes business magazines and journals only.
Getting the Information
Once you've identified the right magazines, contact the editorial departments using their website, fax or phone number, and published contact information. Many industry-specific magazines publish statistical editions and market reviews at regular intervals.
Another good idea is to contact the magazine staff. Start with the Managing Editor, who is normally the highest journalist in the publication. Find a convenient time to ask him or her for a few minutes of expert advice. The journalists who cover your industry are frequently very knowledgeable.
Use the indexes to identify published information that might help your Web plan. When you find an index listing for an article that forecasts your industry or talks about industry economics or trends, jot down basic information on the publication and ask the library for a copy of the publication.
