BPA & Circulation FAQ
Download this page as a PDFFrom your BPA statement and your circulation counts, it appears that your magazine goes to a large number of manufacturing facilities. Why so many manufacturing facilities, as opposed to distribution centers?
That's a reflection of the way we originally built our circulation list. Since there are no SIC codes for distribution centers, we approached the task by compiling a list of DCs from scratch and then categorizing those facilities. What you see in the counts for "manufacturing" are people who buy, recommend, and specify material handling products and transportation services related to warehouses or distribution centers that either serve manufacturing plants or handle finished goods. In other words, they make material handling and transportation service decisions for warehouses or DCs that are classified under "manufacturing."
A secondary benefit of including these buyers is that most of them hold senior-level titles and probably do buy, recommend, and specify equipment and services for some of the manufacturing operations, but this is not the primary reason they are on our list.
You list 10,691 contacts under "distribution management." That seems a bit light for a book that claims to be focused on distribution centers and logistics.
At the time they fill out our qualification card, respondents are asked to indicate their job function—corporate management, operating management, distribution management, and so on. Although there is often some crossover among titles (a VP of distribution could be considered both distribution management and corporate management, for example), respondents can select only one of the five categories listed.
On our BPA statement, we have classified the magazine's recipients precisely the way they identified themselves on their qualification cards. That is, if they reported that their job function was "distribution management," as those 10,691 respondents did, we listed them that way. Similarly, if they identified themselves as "corporate management," as some VPs of distribution, VPs of logistics, and VPs of transportation did, we listed them that way. And if they said their job function was "operating management," as many general managers of DCs did, we listed them as such. But clearly, if we pulled all the distribution and logistics management titles together, the total would be significantly higher than 10,691.
What type of DC is included in the "others" category?
The "others" category includes U.S. Postal Service DC facilities and military facilities as well as consultants who specify systems and equipment for several types of DCs.
Why do you list only 47,704 contacts in your circulation as answering "yes" to the question: Do you buy, recommend or specify products or services for distribution centers?
In going through the process of collecting direct requests and responses to our circulation survey, we had 47,704 contacts respond "yes." A very small amount responded "no" over the phone.
Why have you included those who answered "no" in your circulation figures?
We included those respondents for three reasons. First, although they answered "no" to our "buy, recommend, or specify" question, they have nonetheless requested the magazine, which shows they have some level of interest in the products and services discussed in our magazine. Second, they all hold management-level titles and are high-ranking contacts within companies. We believe that the presidents of companies like Home Depot or Staples are important people to reach regardless of how they answer such a question. Third, we feel that some of these executives may have answered "no" because they are not involved in the day-to-day decision making—even though they actually have a great deal of influence over the process.
Highlights of Circulation
1. DC VELOCITY is an upper-level management logistics magazine. Other internal and external logistics magazines focus on the shipper or the engineer. DC VELOCITY focuses on the higher-end decision makers. Approximately 50% of our recipients are corporate decision makers, and 50% are onsite decision makers. We deliberately built our circulation this way from the start as it serves our advertisers best to have an influencer both at the corporate level and on site at each company.
2. DC VELOCITY has a strong reach into retail and wholesale distribution centers along with a very strong reach into manufacturing distribution centers.
3. While this number is not on our BPA statement, it is important to note that DC VELOCITY reaches approximately 3,000 engineering and consulting contacts with decision-making authority for material handling and transportation services and products.
4. DC VELOCITY reaches many of the key decision makers for the U.S. Postal Service and Department of Defense. These contacts are reflected in the "other" category under business classification.
5. DC VELOCITY's geographical circulation breakdown shows that it reaches the two biggest markets proportionately for DCs—Chicago and Ohio. It also provides the market's first model for looking at decision makers' locations by geography for distribution centers in the United States.