Coffee Break: Readership survey sheds light on SBJ subscribers

October was a whirlwind of activity here at the Business Journal, and we're all taking a breath and regrouping for year-end.

We started out the month with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce Business and Technology Expo, put out a 68-page HBA Remodeling Show issue and held our fourth annual Most Influential Women luncheon Oct. 16 to a sold-out crowd of 600.

We finished the month by producing an 84-page Salute to Construction issue which hit the stands Nov. 3 and putting together and sending out our first-ever economic survey to a sample of 700 SBJ subscribers.

As of Nov. 5, 144 surveys had already been returned, a response rate of more than 20 percent.

Thank you, SBJ readers!

In the weeks ahead, we will tally the results of this new survey, and those results will form the basis of our Economic Outlook issue, which will debut Jan. 5.

In the meantime, we have tallied most of the information from the readership survey that we sent out in June.

Here's some of what we learned about SBJ subscribers:

Our subscriber base is 68 percent male, 32 percent female, and readership by women is increasing: four years ago, our readership was 74 percent male and 26 percent female.

In terms of age, the largest single age group is age 45-54, which makes up 33 percent of readership. Otherwise, 11 percent of readers are 25 to 34; 22 percent are 35 to 44; 24 percent are 55 to 64; and 9 percent are 65 or older.

The vast majority of SBJ subscribers 84 percent are married, and even more 94 percent are homeowners.

Our subscribers are well-educated: 66 percent have graduated from college, including 13 percent who have engaged in post-graduate study and 21 percent who have obtained post-graduate degrees.

The vast majority of our subscribers are in management, and 56 percent are presidents/CEOs or owners of their companies.

Our subscribers have high household net worth. Twenty-eight percent report net worth of $200,000-$499,999 and 26 percent report net worth of $1 million or more.

In terms of company size, 31 percent of subscribers' companies employ one to five people, 28 percent employ six to 20; 15 percent employ 21 to 50; 7 percent employ 51-99, 10 percent employ 100 to 249 and 3 percent employ 250-500.

Only 5 percent report working at companies with more than 500 employees.

SBJ subscribers value SBJ and what it brings them: 98 percent plan to renew their subscriptions.

Our editorial department is especially delighted with the input we received on subscribers' preferences.

The most popular content in our paper is our news coverage 100 percent report they either "always" read it (78 percent) or "sometimes" read it (22 percent).

Also weighing in among our most popular features are the Business Spotlight at 100 percent (71 percent always; 29 percent sometimes); Open for Business at 100 percent (67 percent always; 33 percent sometimes); People in the News at 99 percent (73 percent always; 26 percent sometimes); and Inside Business special sections at 99 percent (66 percent always; 33 percent sometimes).

I'll tell you more about the input we received in the comments section, as well as some specific numbers on SBJ subscribers' purchasing plans, in a future column.