Many marketers want to talk with the "person in charge." Many times, that means reaching the people who occupy the top-level jobs within an organization.
In business parlance, that's the C-suite.
The titles almost always have "chief" in them — chief executive officer, chief operating officer, chief financial officer, chief technology officer, maybe even chief chief.
Most people believe this group is elusive and impervious to the media. In fact, the opposite is true. C-Suite executives, male and female, are aggressive consumers of media.
"Top executives are heavy users of what we think of as traditional media, such as television, newspapers and magazines, but they are also getting more deeply into the digital space, not only the Internet itself, but streaming video, blogs, podcasts, and the like," said Hugh White, vice president of Ipsos MediaCT.
Ipsos, a global survey-based research firm, studied the media habits of U.S. business executives and detailed the findings in its "Business Elite Study." Here are some of the findings about where executives go for their business news.
• National newspapers, such as The Wall Street Journal, are the main sources for business news for almost 20 percent of CEOs.
• Cable TV — MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg etc. — ranked No. 2, at 14.5 percent.
• The Internet is the primary source of business news for 13.2 percent of CEOs.
• Business magazines (12.9 percent) and local newspapers (12.4 percent) beat network TV and radio as business news sources by substantial margins.
While use of the Internet continues to show strong gains, almost half of C-Suite executives say the Internet has made little difference in their reading of business publications, according to the Ipsos survey.
"The highly desirable C-Level executive audience will continue to increase its use of the Internet as a primary source of business information," said Jim Spanfeller, CEO and president of Forbes.com.
One reason is that other media exposures are leading the business elite to their own sites online, as The Tennessean does with Tennessean.com.
Execs read Web newsIpsos also studied the online habits of the C-Suite, and what those executives are opting to read on the Web. Yahoo News tops the list, with 33 percent of C-Suite use. The online offerings of Google News, MSNBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and The New York Times all had more than a 10 percent share of America's top-level executives.
More than two-thirds of C-Suite executives download video from Web sites or regularly receive e-mail newsletters on topics of interest, and more than 70 percent of the executives believe that a business news source must augment its primary media vehicle with a Web site.
So if you want to communicate with the C-Suite, a comprehensive marketing and advertising program is in order.
Integrate your offline and online advertising programs, build a robust Web site filled with useful information, update that Web site often and focus on public relations efforts to the business press to help spread the word about your business.
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