How rewarding are your customer media? Find out how to make the most of your magazine!

Transcription

1 How rewarding are your customer media? Find out how to make the most of your magazine!

2 Content Content marketing is hot! 3 Are you making the most of your magazine?4 Conclusion 11 p2

3 Content marketing is hot! Customer media is a fast-growing and successful segment in the world of communications. Advertisers are increasingly resorting to custom media to deliver pertinent and engaging content to customers and prospects. Rightly so, as magazines are well liked by their target audiences. This is corroborated by the figures of the Custometer (a survey conducted at regular intervals by Custo, the Belgian association of content marketeers * ): ÖÖOn average, a magazine manages to capture readers attention for 28 minutes. ÖÖ66% of readers feel like buying with the company or brand that issues the magazine. ÖÖ85% sets store by the information put forward in the medium. The Belgian market for customer media is worth an estimated 30 to 60 million, showing an annual growth rate of around 10%. The number of players is continuing to rise, with increasing numbers of publishers, print shops and communications agencies now offering customer media. * As such, advertisers and providers are seeking to raise the level of professionalism, not just in the creation and packaging of the content, but also in the areas of distribution, cross media approach, partnering and the canvassing of advertisements. * Source: p3

4 Are you making the most of your magazine? In custom media too, the call for ROI is making itself heard louder. So it is a good idea to look into ways to keep the lid on your expenses, amplify your magazines impact among your target audience and even consider how you can turn your magazine into a source of revenue. Efficiency Impact Revenue Work out how much you can save each year by maintaining the quality of your mailing list! # customers/prospects x # magazines per annum x % duplicate issues x cost per magazine p4

5 So ask yourself... Efficiency how to control the cost of distribution. Running your own magazine obviously has a price tag attached to it. Not just for the (content) creation, but very often also in terms of distribution (postal dispatch). Are you certain your magazine is delivered to the right customers, prospects or even employees? How many magazines are return-delivered because your customers have moved or the address quality is not up to the mark? Are you using the latest version of your employee records to dispatch your staff magazine to? You need to know that magazines that are returned to you are just the tip of the iceberg! Data Quality Association (DQA.be) put it to the test: just 18% of deliberately misdirected postal items found their way back to the sender as return mail! Duplicate issues too are a major source of avoidable costs. Are you sure your communication is delivered just once to every consumer or every family? It is also worth considering the impact of duplicate issues on your public image, when customers start to wonder about the authenticity of the customer relationship, customer intimacy and environmental care. p5

6 Efficiency how to combine channels to spend your content marketing budget more cost-efficiently. Combine your print magazine with digital channels to raise cost-efficiency: give customers the opportunity to choose to (also) get the magazine in digital form, send out interim updates by and seamlessly link up the channels. How many customers do you have an address for, alongside a postal address? Collect as many addresses as possible. Or have them enriched, so you quickly have a critical mass of contacts at your disposal. Impact how to be as relevant as possible in delivering content for your target group. In order to be hyper-relevant in terms of content, images, tone of voice and incentives tendered, you need to have an intimate understanding of your target group. Marketers often have a good gut instinct, based on observation and experience. Complement this know-how by tapping into your own customer data. What exactly do you know about the sociodemographic or business characteristics of your target group? About their interests and customs? And are you already harnessing this intelligence to emphasise the right elements in your magazine and associated communications? p6

7 Impact how to reach as many customers or prospects from your target group as possible. You are undoubtedly convinced that your customers are valuable. And that missed sales opportunities are to be avoided. So do not allow customers and prospects to get under the wire and keep in touch. Even if they are moving house (and they will not necessarily let you know ), switching to a new ISP or changing address. For maximum impact, consider sending contacts for whom you just have an address your magazines by post as well. Complete contact details for customers with a physical address. Update and enrich your contact details on a regular basis to see your magazine used to its full potential among your entire target group. Impact how to add to your target group with pertinent prospects Are you also using your custom magazine to convince potential prospects? In that case it might be a good idea to set out in search of the right prospects, i.e. those that are most likely to provide you with a positive ROI. Fact: your best prospects look like your best customers. So identify your best customers and project their profiles onto a list of prospects. p7

8 Impact how to really engage with your customer with the aid of the right content. Custom media are an excellent way of engendering a sense of customer/brand loyalty among your patrons (provided you are delivering the right content that is). But what else can you do? Use your magazines to stimulate other than strictly reading behaviour with a measurable impact. For instance, trigger measurable buying behaviour through - ideally personalised - vouchers or coupons. You can include these in your magazine in a personalised coupon sheet or include e-coupons or vouchers with the digital version. This enables you to trace your customer from your custom medium all the way into the shop, branch, etc. Or highlight the link with social media, by inviting readers to like or follow your business. Digital printing technologies and a digital magazine even allow you to personalise the magazine in full or in part, enabling you to fully tailor the content to the profile of each individual reader or customer. This sees you creating optimum conditions for genuine engagement. p8

9 how to pursue engagement across channels. Impact A customer who gets in touch with you across a variety of different channels is a better kind of customer. Some figures for retailers: Multi-channel customers spend up to 3.5 times more time with your brand than single-channel customers, they are out shopping more often, buy more and are more loyal. (source: ICSC) But make sure you identify and acknowledge your customer across all channels! Consumers do not understand your call centre would not know that you sent them a magazine, or that they just came into your shop or branch. So it is out with silo thinking (my operational customer database, my database of customers and prospects, etc.) and in with connecting the dots. Link the customer to all his contact points (address, address, telephone number, cookies, device ids, ), profile and behaviour. p9

10 Revenue how to turn your magazine into a source of revenue Can you do it on your own? To set up a professional customer medium, you will need to make available the relevant budgets. Getting partners on board can be a good way forward. Both in order to recover part of the investment and to enable you to give readers/customer a more plentiful and varied content offering. Opening up your magazine to advertisements as a purely financial transaction requires an in-depth understanding of the consumers or businesses that read your magazine. What is their sociodemographic, business or lifestyle profile? That is easy enough to find out by performing a profile analysis. Also check on your Facebook fans: which brands, fields of interest, etc. are they linked to? Obviously, collaborations can also extend to include content and offers. Just one example would be (e)-coupons or vouchers from other companies. Alongside the financial benefit of the joint effort, the offering aimed at the consumer or the business is enriched, which means the magazine is rated higher by the target group and therefore has greater impact. p10

11 In doing so, you will be combining the double whammy effect of cost-cutting efforts (and possibly even the generation of extra income) with the extra impact and reach of a profitable and engaging magazine. Want to find out exactly how to go about it? Do not hesistate to contact me via or telephone. Bisnode assists advertisers that run their own custom magazine with all data challenges. How much can you save by identifying house movers? And how many missed sales can you recover by reconnecting with your customers at their new address? Bisnode finds out for you! How many address customers can you add to your list based on physical address? Bisnode tells you how! How many more readers can you reach out to? Bisnode finds your best prospects! Do you know the profile of your readers? Bisnode paints it for you! Establish links between contact points and contact lists? Bisnode connects the dots! An Louwagie Business Consultant an.louwagie@bisnode.be T Bisnode Allée de la Recherche Anderlecht T info@bisnode.be Engage with readers and customers across all channels? Bisnode supports and optimises your (digital) campaigns! Convince potential partners to get in on your magazine? Bisnode supplies you with the right arguments! p11

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