We Need Your Help to Provide High-Quality Trade Journalism

Quality trade journalism not only reports on the relevant facts of a particular story, but provides valuable context and market analysis for the reader. And a key component of providing a complete picture of any topic, particularly when assessing a specific pest control market segment, is performing high-quality, unimpeachable industry research. That’s why for much of the past decade PCT has partnered with Readex Research, an independent, third-party research firm based in Stillwater, Minn., to perform credible research that focuses on specific market segments of importance to the pest control industry. It’s a responsibility we and Readex take very seriously, but we need your help to succeed.

You see, the pest control industry in the U.S. and Canada consists of approximately 20,000 companies ranging in size from one- to five-person operations to large, regional businesses and a handful of publicly traded entities. To get an accurate picture of the entire marketplace, we need to understand each of your businesses, whether you’re a family-owned business working out of a single location or a national player with service centers across North America.

That’s where you come in. For any given State of the Market report, we ask a randomly selected list of PCT readers to provide their input on past and present business conditions as it relates to a particular vertical market segment (i.e., termites, ants, cockroaches, rodents, fleas, bed bugs, etc.). While a few lucky PMPs are awarded gift cards in a prize drawing following the close of each survey, and others are contacted by our reporting staff for “real-world” market insights, the vast majority of PMPs simply respond to our surveys and wait for the results to appear in a future issue of PCT magazine.

(A quick note about this issue: We’re not just performing research for our State of the Market reports with such surveys. This month’s cover story, for example, is based on Readex research on behalf of PCT and NPMA. So thank you for responding to all of our queries.)

We understand that responding to our surveys takes time and effort — time you may not always have given the day-to-day demands of running a business. Nonetheless, please know we appreciate you going the extra mile to respond to our repeated inquiries. We don’t take your commitment of time and effort lightly, so thank you in advance!

Because of your contributions, we’re creating a historical record of market conditions across multiple segments of the pest management industry. As a result, we have a better understanding of each of these market segments today than we did a decade ago, which has allowed us to provide the necessary context and market analysis required to produce quality journalism.

We’ve already fielded surveys for several of our 2021 market reports, so if you have responded to those surveys, thanks for participating. If you have yet to be contacted, look to hear from us in the weeks and months ahead, and know that you are providing a critical industry service that will benefit you and your colleagues for years to come. We are grateful for your support. Best wishes for continued success and good health in 2021!

The author is publisher of PCT magazine. He can be reached at dmoreland@gie.net.