The CMN Audit

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Audits are a staple of magazine publishing but for most community magazines their either cost prohibitive or simply aren't well suited for magazines with mostly controlled circulation. The Community Magazine Network Audit is an introductory level audit that evaluates your printing quantity & specifications, your distribution method and locations, and includes zip-code level demographic data. Even if you're 100% direct-mailed and show advertisers your postage receipt, the CMN audit can be a valuable tool accompanying your media kit.

Have an audit that's less than 12 months old? Ask about our membership discount for audited publications.

Don't think an audit is right for you? Think again. An audit is not a negative thing, quite the opposite. It's a chance for you to re-evaluate the nuts and bolts of your operation, to tighten up the pieces of your business that have gotten loose, and to generate a report that will help you drive sales.

Oh, yea. If you want to be a part of the Community Magazine Network's ad sales program an audit is also required (either by us or the 'Big-4'). Large advertisers and their agencies are sophisticated and demand audited circulation so by getting an audit you're also helping us sell ads on your behalf.

• Printing Quanity & Specifications

  

  We verify printing quantity & quality

  One of community magazine's biggest reason for success is that they look great, are beautifully crafted, and are an enjoyable read. The other reason is that they are able to reach a significant portion of the people in the community they serve. Our audit looks at both the number of copies printed and the printing specifications to validate the details presented in the media kit.

  Printing quantities fluctuate over time to accommodate the inflow of summer tourists or the infusion of snowbirds seeking sun. Whatever your rhythm we'll track it and help provide a trend analysis both now and into the future.

• Distribution & Circulation Analysis

  

  We verify printing quantity & quality

  If you're like most community magazines your distribution method doesn't fall neatly into a single bucket. You likely have some paid subscribers, then again maybe you offer your subscriptions for free. You likely have a slew of pickups locations perhaps both paid and controlled circulation, or you might be like the approximately 25% that use direct-mail as their primary means of distribution.

  No matter where you fall or how your distribution breaks down our audit will evaluate, analize and generate a report that will be a welcomed addition to your ad sales toolkit helping you better demonstrate your strategy to advertisers.

  Most of your advertisers don't ask for an audit? Be proactive and it will pay dividends. As we said before, the Community Magazine Network does not work with competitive magazines and as a result a CMN Audit can help you stand out from your competitors

• An audit can help you sell ads, period. If you're in a competitive market it's even more valuable as a differentiator.

• Demographic data can help you refine your distribution & target advertisers

  

  

  Sure, you know your community and the types of people in it. But how well and across which demographic criteria?

  By combining our analysis of your distribution locations with demographic data from Nielsen/Claritas research we're able to infer who your readers are and what their basic demographic profile looks like. Note: While we do not conduct reader surveys, our research has shown a high readership rate of community magazines and readers generally live in close geographical proximity to the distribution location of magazine. As a result, distribution locations work well as a proxy for reader demographic purposes. The accuracy of this analysis goes up further when considering publications that are mailed directly to homes

• Trying to monetize your website? We can track your web traffic too.

  

  

  Most magazine websites have traffic that are too small to accurately be reflected by Alexa and Compete and if you manage your own analytics, tampering is possible.

  The Community Magazine Network can, for an additional fee, monitor your web traffic as part of our web audit.

  Not driving the traffic you'd like? We can help with that too through our game-changing Locable.com initiative.

  Heard enough? Why wait, Join Us now!