Planning is Everything
This advance-planning theory contributed to Ingram’s making a bold move a decade ago to publish our Media Kit and Editorial & Planning Calendar for the coming year in or poly-bagged with one of our fall editions. We also dedicate the Inside Back Cover to provide a 5-Month calendar, which includes updated plans and strategies as they materialize. The response from colleagues around the nation was split between church-and-state editors and marketing-minded publishers. The publisher’s interests prevailed and editors now buy in to this practice as a common protocol.
I encourage you and your marketing team to explore the information and resources available in Ingram’s 2010 Media Kit and Editorial & Planning Calendar, attached in the back section of this issue. There’s a disadvantage of printing detailed plans, however, particularly with our competitors. Savvy marketers will notice similar plans emerge among competing publications and media in the month(s) preceding our coverage. So we know that we must do our research and execute our marketing and editorial strategies better.
Ingram’s has established a number of long-standing annual competitions and awards programs, as well as special projects such as Industry Outlook, Corporate Report 100, Heroes in Healthcare, our banking, construction and education Quarterly Reports, Ingram’s Lifestyle quarterly publications and our industry ranking lists and the Black Book employer by county lists to name a few. It’s worth noting that, each month, we’ll reproduce feature sections of the magazine and distribute these supplemental publications throughout business and industry.
This gives our clients the value-added benefit of two ads for the price of one, and advertisers who commit to four or more ads a year earn a bonus insertion in one of our special editions. With budgets being planned, know that in 2010 we’ll unveil an arsenal of effective online strategic positioning opportunities.
Why is Ingram’s Media Kit & Planning Calendar so accessible? Two primary reasons—Ingram’s is extraordinarily “connected” with our readers, and it is they who inspire our editorial and marketing strategies. They use these tools to plan their ad-positioning strategies. Secondly, we manage a lean operation with exceptional talent among our full-time employees and our associates. We carefully manage operations and expenditures with the intent of being here to serve your interests and the business community for years to come. We do this with a lean development team, so we rely on the network of marketing managers, ad agencies and our readers to use Ingram’s Media Kit to plan their marketing strategies.
We’re fortunate to begin our 36th year of Ingram’s service to the metro Kansas City area and businesses operating in Missouri and Kansas. In the 14 years that Show-Me Publishing has operated the publication, we’ve seen a long line of competing magazine titles come and go. None, however, has been able to match our audience of more than 107,000 readers who spend, on average, 102 minutes a month reading Ingram’s. We’ve worked hard to earn that readership, and we encourage you to put it to use. I hope you’ll take the time to review Ingram’s Media Kit and planning calendar—note particularly the reader demographic information on Page 3. A statistic worth noting is that Ingram’s has a significantly higher demographic readership profile and more readers than all five of the Business Journals in Missouri and Kansas—combined. In KC’s 35-county DMA area, Ingram’s also has more readers than Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur and Business Week—combined.
It is not uncommon to be tempted by lower ad rates or to buy coverage in competing publications and media. I would hope that your organization’s decisions are based on the track record of the publication and strength of the readership audience, rather than the perceived “deal” you might negotiate. Ingram’s won’t offer the cheapest rates, but we will deliver an extraordinary value, particularly given how effectively we reach your targeted prospective audience. We challenge anyone to find a media property—print, radio, TV, or on-line—in Missouri and Kansas with more influential and affluent readership demographics than Ingram’s. If you do, your advertising in Ingram’s will be published with our compliments.
KC area regional businesses, organizations and associations have a choice of where to invest their marketing budgets. We’re confident that your organization will receive effective results reaching the executive B-2-B community by advertising in Ingram’s. We would consider it a privilege to serve your organization as a strategic marketing and positioning partner. Please contact me personally if we can be of service to help advance your business interests and how best to Put the Power of Ingram’s to work for you. 
Joe Sweeney
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
Sweeney@IngramsOnLine.com