Reed Business Information
Business-to-business magazines, online lead generation services, community websites and online data tools provide information to users and an effective marketing channel through which advertisers reach their target audiences and industry professionals can access valued information. Total revenues for the year ended 31 December 2008 were £987m.
Reed Business Information provides information and marketing solutions to business professionals in the United States, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Australia and Asia.
Business-to-business magazines, online lead generation services and community websites provide an effective marketing channel through which advertisers reach their target audiences and industry professionals can access valued information. The business has a number of leading brands in a range of sectors and online data services which enable users to enhance productivity through quicker and easier access to more comprehensive and searchable data. Business-to-business marketing spend has been driven historically by levels of corporate profitability, which itself has followed overall growth in GDP and business investment. Demand for online data services tends to be more resilient to fluctuations in GDP growth.
Reed Business Information publishes over 400 trade magazines, directories, newsletters, and over 200 online communities, jobsites, lead generation, data and other online services. Important magazine titles include Variety and Interior Design in the United States; Flight International, Computer Weekly, Estates Gazette, and New Scientist in the United Kingdom; and Elsevier and Boerderij in the Netherlands. Online services accounted for 34% of Reed Business Information 2008 revenues. These products include totaljobs.com, a major online recruitment site in the UK; ICIS-LOR, a global information and pricing service for the petrochemicals sector; Elsevier.nl, a news and lifestyle service in the Netherlands; BuyerZone.com, an online lead generation service in the US; and Hotfrog, a global online business directory.
Reed Business Information aims to be the first choice of business professionals for information and decision support in its individual markets and for marketing services. Its key strategic areas of focus are: to continue to develop existing and new online products and services in key markets; to develop print franchises through brand extensions and redesign; to upgrade the portfolio through investment, acquisition and divestment; to expand geographically in fast growing markets; and to improve organisational effectiveness through investment in people, further development of online competencies, and cost reduction programmes.
In the US, business-to-business magazines are primarily distributed on a controlled circulation basis, whereby the product is delivered without charge to qualified buyers within a targeted industry group based upon circulation lists developed and maintained by the publisher. Magazines distributed on this basis only are wholly dependent on advertising for their revenues. In the United Kingdom, business magazines are distributed both on a controlled circulation basis and a paid circulation basis. In the Netherlands, a higher proportion of publications are sold by paid circulation. Distribution of magazines is conducted primarily through national postal services, supplemented by news-stand sales through unaffiliated wholesalers.
Online products and services are generally sold through dedicated sales forces and intermediaries, including revenue sharing arrangements with other online service providers, and by direct promotion.
Reed Business Information’s titles compete with a number of publishers on a title by title basis in individual market sectors, the largest competitors being: Advanstar, CMP Media (United Business Media), Hanley Wood, McGraw Hill, Penton and Nielsen in the United States; Eden (formerly EMAP), VNU and CMP Media in the United Kingdom; and Wolters Kluwer and Nielsen in the Netherlands. Reed Business Information competes for online advertising with other business-to-business websites as well as Google and other search engines.