Published April 2003

Journal celebrates
five years of news

Happy new year!

Even though it’s April, for the Snohomish County Business Journal this month IS the start of a new year, our sixth year of providing countywide business news coverage.

Since 1998 we have enjoyed a warm welcome and strong support from the county’s business community. Each month we mail 15,000 copies to business owners, executives and their staffs, reaching 45,000 readers, according to our reader surveys.

Over the past five years, we have published 60 regular issues and more than eight special editions — including our annual Business Women and Market Facts issues and special keepsake issues for such major construction projects as Providence Everett Medical Center’s new Pavilion for Women and Children.

Those issues have provided more than 2,600 pages of business news about technology, housing, health care, banking, business resources, nonprofit agencies and the business people who power the county’s economy.

Five of those issues, one on each anniversary, have honored a successful, inspirational business leader as the journal’s “Executive of the Year,” including the man on this month’s cover — Rocky Wens, president of Engineering Support Personnel Inc. of Lynnwood.

Month after month, year after year, the journal has been praised by its readers. Yes, this is my annual “How great we are!” editorial, but it’s also a time to tell you that the popularity of the journal as a significant source for Snohomish County business news, and business-to-business advertising, was assessed recently in a Verified Audit Circulation survey of 505 of our readers.

Of those who responded to this opinion sampling, 84.5 percent said they read the journal regularly, 96.7 percent said they want to continue receiving it, and we found that an average of nearly three people read each issue, according to the report. Even better, 51 percent said they read each issue 20 to 30 minutes, while 26 percent read it 30 to 60 minutes.

Ninety percent of the respondents said they find the news quality to be “good” or “excellent,” and 85 percent find the advertising content “very useful” to “somewhat useful.” Eighty-two percent of the respondents said they “make or influence their company’s purchasing decisions” and 47 percent said they have made buying decisions based on the content in the business journal.

Also, our Web site — www.snohomishcountybusinessjournal.com — has continued to grow in popularity since we launched it 18 months ago. Last June, according to a Web Trends report, there were 3,771 individual “unique” visitors to our Web site who made 8,544 visits during the month and viewed 18,391 pages of material.

Last February, only eight months later, our site received 6,722 “unique” visitors who made 19,183 visits to look at 66,731 pages of material — a sizable increase in Web site activity over the eight-month period. As we add more features, more current and archived issues and more advertisements on the site, we anticipate those numbers will continue to rise.

In this “new year,” we remain committed to providing Snohomish County’s business and technology communities with hundreds more pages of business news, trends, advice, statistics and profiles — business news you can use.

We offer our thanks to our loyal readers — and to the business-to-business advertisers who have shown their support and confidence in our business journal during the past five years — for their continued confidence in our publication, a business journal that really is your publication.

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