Find out what our readers think with the results of our 2025 Readers’ Survey.
The results of the latest readers’ survey are in! At Professional Pest Manager we run a tri-annual readers’ survey to get feedback from our readers about what they like, what we could do better and potential new ideas. So, what did we learn from the 2025 survey?
It’s always good to start with an overall rating, which really measures how readers generally feel about the magazines. Professional Pest Manager magazine received an overall rating of 4.47 out of 5, which continues the upward trend from the last two surveys. Termite Professional magazine received a slightly higher score of 4.49 out of 5, exactly the same as the last survey. For both magazines over 90% of readers gave a rating of very good or excellent.
Digging a bit deeper, one of the key likes of Professional Pest Manager magazine was the variety of content in each issue, with all the regular segments of the magazine getting multiple likes from respondents. A common thread from many of the ad hoc comments referred to the quality of the information, for example “Credible information and a good source of knowledge from the people in the industry”. For Termite Professional magazine, readers really appreciated the keynote articles on specific termite subjects and the summary articles covering the latest research. Readers are clearly hungry for knowledge and quality information.
This desire for learning also came through in the suggestions for new segments and articles. In particular readers are keen for more articles that provide practical solutions for issues faced in the field. There were also a number of suggestions for more stories involving pest managers – business tips from successful companies, case studies of challenging pest management situations, and examples of different career paths. A few requested more information on equipment. We’ll see what we can do!
“The feedback regarding the quality and trustworthiness of the magazine content was particularly pleasing. It is a key objective that drives our publications,” said Dr Phil Ridley, director at Professional Pest Manager.
The magazine generally consists of 50% magazine-generated material and 50% supplier editorial, providing readers with a wide variety of content. Magazine content is written by independent pest control experts and supplier editorial is reviewed according to magazine editorial guidelines.
“We put in place strict editorial guidelines a few years back to improve the quality of editorial submissions, particularly relating to product performance. Essentially if the claim is not on the label, then evidence supporting the claim needs to be provided within the article. It’s good to see readers acknowledging the credibility of content within the magazine.”
There are always comments in media land that print magazines are dying. However, this is not necessarily the case – and certainly not for specialist print magazines. For Professional Pest Manager magazine, readers told us they spend around 2.5 hours reading each issue of the magazine and over 90% of readers keep the magazine as reference material to revisit in the future. The beauty of print is that magazines can also be passed around to team members, with 50% of respondents saying they share the magazine with their team.
However, the magazines are multi-media publications – not only is there the printed magazine but there are online versions, with individual articles uploaded to professionalpestmanager.com. Although around two thirds of readers prefer the printed magazine, most readers take advantage of the multi-media nature of the magazines, with over 75% of readers also accessing the articles online.
This survey was the first time we asked for feedback about our monthly PPM E-News. Just over 90% of respondents said they open the E-News at least sometimes, with around 50% of respondents reading issues of E-News all the time. Readers like to access the latest content through E-News, particularly the News articles and Pests in the News segments. The termite segment (as expected) is also very popular with readers.
As always, we appreciate your feedback, and we would like to thank our paid subscribers and advertisers again for their continued support.
Benefits of being a paid subscriber…
Professional Pest Manager magazine is an independently owned magazine and relies on advertiser support and subscriptions. Importantly, the magazine has a target to include at least 50% ‘non-commercial’ material, to educate our readers on all aspects of pest control. In this regard, your subscription fees help us meet this goal and generate independent content. So, a big thank you to our paid subscribers. Our paid subscribers get a number of additional benefits, including a free listing on the pest control company locator on professionalpestmanager.com. Even if subscribers get only one job through the directory over the course of the year, paid subscribers are already making money from their subscription.
Web traffic to the Professional Pest Manager website is rapidly increasing from members of the public looking for information on pests and professional pest control services. In light of this, website advertising will soon be made available to pest control companies – a great way to target potential leads. More information will be released in the new year.
