How rewarding are
your customer media?
Find out how to make the most of your magazine!
Content
Content marketing is ‘hot’!
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Are you making the most of your magazine?4
Conclusion
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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*):
ÖÖ
On average, a magazine manages to
capture readers’ attention for
28 minutes.
ÖÖ
66% of readers feel like buying with
the company or brand that issues the
magazine.
ÖÖ
85% 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: www.custo.be
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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
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So ask yourself...
… how to control the cost of distribution.
Efficiency
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.
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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 e-mail and seamlessly link up the channels.
How many customers do you have an e-mail address for, alongside a postal
address? Collect as many e-mail addresses as possible. Or have them enriched,
so you quickly have a critical mass of e-mail 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?
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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 e-mail address.
For maximum impact, consider sending contacts for whom you just have an e-mail
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.
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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.
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… 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 e-mail
database of customers and prospects, etc.) and in with ‘connecting the dots’.
Link the customer to all his contact points (address, e-mail address, telephone
number, cookies, device ids, …), profile and behaviour.
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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.
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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 e-mail 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 e-mail 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
[email protected]
T. +32 2 555 97 67
@anlouwagie
Bisnode
Allée de la Recherche 65
1070 Anderlecht
T. +32 2 555 94 44
[email protected]
www.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!
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