Beyond the Subscription

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CUSTOMER DIRECT 2007
Beyond the Subscription
Tracking the Customer Journey
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The idea of the customer journey is dead at
least as far as our business is concerned. Our
customer touchpoints are so varied and so
complex, that talk of a journey is simply
redundant. B2B Publisher
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The project dimensions
Magazine Publishing
Other Industries
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Publisher research profile
B2B
Consumer
Archant BBC Dennis Future Haymarket IPC Nat
Mag Readers Digest Signature Which
CMP EMAP Informa Janes RBI
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Presentation agenda

• The broad customer context
• The role of subscriptions
• Current publisher practice
• Key influences
• The publisher future
• Next steps in the project

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The broad customer context
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The broad customer context

• Increasingly time-pressured.
• Increasingly diverse individualistic.
• .so, difficult to pigeonhole predict.
• Demanding greater choice, but.
• .wanting to reduce complexity.
• Demanding quality, but.
• .wanting value-for-money too.
• Ethical, but savvy consumers.

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The role of subscriptions
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The role of subscriptions

• Subscription growth
• Reasons for company commitment
• Reasons for growth
• Barriers to growth
• A ceiling to growth
• Various publishing models
• The irony of growth

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Current publisher practice
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Current publisher practice

• Customer touchpoints
• Customer segmentation
• The customer journey
• The database
• Customer service
• Retention
• Structural operational issues

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1. Customer touchpoints
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The main customer touchpoints
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The main customer touchpoints
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The main customer touchpoints
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Sizing the net customer pool
Specialist interest consumer magazine
35,000
95,000
Product Buyers Average annual spend 95
Magazine Subscribers Average annual spend 29
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Sizing the net customer pool
101,000 net customers
Sub Only 66,000 customers 65 of total
pool Annual spend 29
Product Only 6,000 customers 6 of total
pool Annual spend 39
Sub Product 29,000 customers / 29 of total
pool Annual spend 29 sub 107 products 136
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Sizing the net customer pool
Lifestyle consumer magazine
221,000
427,000
Website Users
Print Edition Users
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Sizing the net customer pool
494,000 net customers
Print Only 273,000 customers 55 of total pool
Web Only 67,000 customers 14 of total pool
Print Web 154,000 customers 31 of total pool
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Customer touchpoint issues

• Massive data consolidation task
• Various levels of detail data integrity
• Data panic
• Data protection
• Turning non-revenue contacts into transactions
• Ad-hoc contacts can be regular
• Surprises as to how much people can spend
• Massive variations in customer activity levels
• Online versus print is the big issue
• Touchpoint analysis changes the way you work

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2. Customer segmentation
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Customer segmentation

• Attitudes
• (research)

• Behaviour
• (transactions)

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Customer segmentation

• Attitudes
• (research)
• Demographics
• Product usage
• Views of core product
• Delivery of core product
• Quality of staff contact
• Future purchasing intentions
• Willingness to recommend

• Behaviour
• (transactions)

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Customer segmentation

• Attitudes
• (research)
• Demographics
• Product usage
• Views of core product
• Delivery of core product
• Quality of staff contact
• Future purchasing intentions
• Willingness to recommend

• Behaviour
• (transactions)
• Lifetime (time)
• Lifetime (value)
• Profile of products bought
• Payment method
• Gifts offers taken
• Pricing at entry to sub
• Acquisition source

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Customer segmentation

• Attitudes
• (research)
• Demographics
• Product usage
• Views of core product
• Delivery of core product
• Quality of staff contact
• Future purchasing intentions
• Willingness to recommend

• Behaviour
• (transactions)
• Lifetime (time)
• Lifetime (value)
• Profile of products bought
• Payment method
• Gifts offers taken
• Pricing at entry to sub
• Acquisition source

• Customer
• Service
• Contacts
• Tracking, measuring, recording
• Customer care surveys

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Customer segmentation issues

• Integrate attitudes behaviour
• Practical number of segments 5-8 / 10 max.
• Segmentation across titles
• Researching the radio silence of retail
• Some real retention gains seen as a result

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3. The customer journey
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The customer journey
The old subscription model
Sub Paywall
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The customer journey
The old subscription model
Sub Paywall
Pre-sub Paywall
An emerging subscription model
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Customer journey issues

• Does the customer journey still exist?
• Moving from a series of defined, term
  contracts.....
• .....to a dynamic series of touchpoints
• Multi-channel editorial product
• Multi-touchpoint customer contact
• The cold consumer two-step acquisition
• Still overly focused on front-end / acquisition
• Retail purchasing as a radio silence
• Gearing customer contact to journey stages

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4. The database
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The database journey
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The database journey
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The database journey
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The database journey
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The database journey

• APPLICATIONS OF THE DATABASE
• Insight segmentation
• Prospecting acquisition
• Retention loyalty
• Selling other products services
• Fully integrated CRM

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Database issues

• Getting the database structure right
• A long painful process
• Going off at tangents / reprioritising
• Running out of steam
• Quality of data / constantly refreshed
• Web data making the biggest demands
• Web analysis data on the cheap
• Clear customer contact policies
• Needs to be used constantly to pay back
• Not a quick payback
• Taking a single view before the database?

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5. Customer service
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Customer service issues

• Integrating customer service into the total
  product experience
• How important is the delivery of the product?
• Customer care surveys
• How often should you talk to your customers?
• Perfect CRM costs big time!

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6. Retention
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Retention issues

• Is there a real strategy in place?
• Segmentation personalisation
• The role of price in making customers stay
• Should you talk outside the key transactions?
• Loyalty programmes
• 1. Repackage existing benefits
• 2. More usage of love gifts
• 3. Streamline pricing structure to reward
  loyalty
• 4. Full loyalty clubs
• What is loyalty?

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7. Structural operational issues
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Structural operational issues

• Staffing issues
• Structure of the organisation
• Company culture
• Driven from the top (or not at all!)
• Selling internally
• Setting benchmarks/milestones/structures
• Keep it as simple as possible
• Outsourcing partnering
• CRM or CMR?

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Publisher categories
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Publisher categories

• Publisher Practice
• Customer touchpoints
• Customer journey
• Customer segmentation
• Database
• Customer service
• Retention
• Structure

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Publisher categories
Atheists

• Publisher Practice
• Customer touchpoints
• Customer journey
• Customer segmentation
• Database
• Customer service
• Retention
• Structure

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Publisher categories
Atheists

• Publisher Practice
• Customer touchpoints
• Customer journey
• Customer segmentation
• Database
• Customer service
• Retention
• Structure

Agnostics
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Publisher categories
Atheists

• Publisher Practice
• Customer touchpoints
• Customer journey
• Customer segmentation
• Database
• Customer service
• Retention
• Structure

Agnostics
Pragmatists
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Publisher categories
Atheists

• Publisher Practice
• Customer touchpoints
• Customer journey
• Customer segmentation
• Database
• Customer service
• Retention
• Structure

Agnostics
Pragmatists
Believers
Initiates
Experts
Novices
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Other questions

• Is B2B different to consumer?
• Are smaller publishers different?

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Looking to the future
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Key influences on the future

• The changing customer
• The growth of online
• Altering the business model
• 1. Price competition
• 2. Physical fulfilment costs
• 3. Internal financial criteria
• Staff organisation issues
• 1. Role
• 2. Skills
• 3. Structure
• The next new thing mobile?
• Period of change uncertainty

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Key publisher action points

• Understand the customer
• Invest in the future
• Take the long view
• Take a steady consistent approach
• Take control of the business.....
• .....but be prepared to change
• Keep it simple
• Keep the product at the centre
• Experiment learn from failure
• Import new skills into the organisation
• Sell the whole medium to the customer

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Next steps in the project

• Non-publisher group meetings
• Workshops
• Report
• May 2008 PPA Conference

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A final thought
Our industry is simply not customer-focused.
Not in the way that Tesco or Vodafone are. We
try to give customers what they want, but its
only within our own publishing model and business
priorities. We need to think outside our own box
if we are to survive. Consumer magazine
Circulation Director
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CUSTOMER DIRECT 2007
Beyond the Subscription
Tracking the Customer Journey
Wessenden Marketing
57
The benchmarking group
Newspapers Financial Times Communications BSKy
B Financial Services Barclaycard Membership T
BC Charity TBC
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