ESco Connect virtual round table session with Laura Paterson

Article by Louise McHale

Fri 10 Jul 2020

On Thursday 7th July 2020, we invited Laura Paterson to talk at a virtual ESco Connect round table session, she chose the brilliant topic…

“Customer Data: Your Secret Weapon”

Laura Paterson is a highly regarded marketing consultant with over 20 years’ experience within the publishing industry. Previously Head of Data and Marketing Technology at Dennis Publishing, Laura founded Customer First Marketing in 2018.

At the beginning of the session, we asked our guests to describe their customer data in one word…these are some of the words that cropped up:

Fragmented, challenging, historic, integral, essential, relentless, loyalty, neglected…

…Oh dear!

Some room for improvement in there!

Here’s a summary of what Laura had to say…

• Talk about the value of the subscription up front with your Customer – from day one
• The number of subs have been rocketing for some publishers as customers have struggled or been reluctant to get their copy from newsstand amidst Covid-19.  This is great, but as we come out of the other side of lockdown, publishers need to work at retaining those new subs and instilling the sense of value for all previous subscribers
• Perhaps consider writing a nice letter to your subscribers. It’s great to remind them of how you’ve supported them during lockdown and any plans you have to continue
• What about those one off customers? It’s important to be utilising all the data at your fingertips and monitoring data where someone has bought a single issue, collect email addresses wherever you can
• Use Marketing cookies! And make sure you use them properly and have it set up by a professional, get it right and it can make an enormous difference to your business
• Laura speaks from previous experience and highly recommends Axel Springer 
• Use Data Triggers – use to trigger other journeys, this doesn’t have to be automated, it could be a manual process. A birthday email is always a nice; you don’t always have to give anything that costs you; additional content is always a good gift
• Make sure you track your customers online behaviour and make sure you understand the different life cycles that your subscribers are at – don’t talk to them all in the same way, recognise loyalty and build trust
• And DON’T be afraid to talk to your Direct Debit subscribers, especially in the early stages

So, lots to think about and lots of useful ideas on how to use your data to strengthen your relationship with your valuable subscribers.