Niche media need to use comparative value propositions – such as the largest, most engaged, most desirable demographic, and most exclusive audience – in their marketing materials, sales presentation and media kits.

Traffic and circulation numbers are just that, numbers. They don’t mean as much as “the dominant” or the “largest” or the media that reaches “critical decision makers for major purchases” and so on. You will note, however, that these are comparative statements.

Compared to what? Well, competitors and other options, of course. So without industrial espionage, what’s are the easiest ways to get the scoop on how your audience demographics stack up against your closest rivals?  This  is not just about who shows up first for key words, but rather, deep knowledge of who the audience actually is.

The most accessible, least expensive tool we’ve found is  SimilarWeb, which provides competitive intelligence on web traffic from a simple search. 

It’s a bit pricey at $135 a month, but we signed up for the free trial and got enough information to use in a media kit.

Below is an example of how easy it is to use a randomly selected niche and set of competing news websites, InsuranceNewsNet and Insurance Journal. 

From the standpoint of an advertiser, both websites look similar. However, one is larger and can back up its claim to be the industry leader with visuals from SimilarWeb in a few minutes. Alternatively, the smaller media company can find its own set of competitive strengths in the demographic data. Here’s how it could work:

Case 1 – Insurance Journal 

Insurance Journal has a lot of qualitative factors going in its favor that it will want to supply in the media kit; it provides the online searchable Insurance Marketplace and  Insurance Academy, innovations that provide a huge natural advantage.

However, just looking at the websites does not give an example of comparative size. Here are some claims a publisher could back up using SimilarWeb:

• The largest U.S. audience of any insurance journal, reaching 63% of the market and 5 times more than the closest competitor. Note that you can pick from the best data, and there is no need to name the closest competitor. I

Typing in the two copies shows that in the U.S., much of the data supports the ‘industry leader”  with 5 to 10x the reach.

• “Insurance Journal reaches young agents when they are most likely to be researching new products and forming new relationships, and the most seasoned agents with more significant books of clients.”

Age distribution doesn’t tell as incredible a story as the age filters below this graph. The age filters also tell a powerful story. “The second-largest insurance news site isn’t even close.”

Case study 2: Insurance Network news 

A publisher of the smaller company, Insurance Network News,  could also use SimilarWeb to express its own strengths and tell a different story. The name implies that the media is more of a breaking news site than a resource center, so language like “the top media industry professionals use to stay up-to-date” might be part of the value proposition.

Using SimilarWeb and focusing on the age distribution, they could also make an additional claim:

• Reach the most significant number of seasoned insurance agents at the peak of their careers,  when they are placing more orders annually.

They also show a lead in some international markets.

These graphs are ready to be “cherry-picked” to find the strengths, and value propositions can be married with editorial advantages.

Note that we don’t have any natural intelligence on these two niche media, or with SimilarWeb, for that matter.  Our purpose here is to encourage members to make bold, comparative statements in their media kits and selling tools, and to show how SimilarWeb is an easy way to get ahold of the comparative data you’ll need to back up any statement.

Here is an example of a media kit that effectively deploys this strategy.

Take these key concepts and make them your own!