Paula: Welcome to Let’s Talk Loyalty, an industry podcast for loyalty marketing professionals. I’m Paula Thomas, the founder of Let’s Talk Loyalty. Today’s episode is hosted by Tom Peace, Managing Director of the Loyalty People, a strategic consultancy with a laser focus on loyalty, CRM, and customer engagement.
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Tom: Hi, I’m Tom Peace, Managing Director of The Loyalty People and presenter of Let’s Talk a Little Loyalty. Welcome to this week’s short summary show. In this week’s episode of let’s talk a little loyalty. I’m reviewing the original podcast where Paula was joined by Cliona Mooney, Group Data Analytics and Insights Director for The Irish Times.
The publishing industry has been through extremely challenging times over the last decade or so. Trusted brands like The Irish Times have had to innovate to stay relevant for customers. In this episode, Cliona shares the initiatives that have proved popular and helped The Irish Times continue to grow and retain their subscribers.
What I really liked about this interview is that Cliona talks initially about how important it is for customer loyalty to get your core principles right. And this is something that I always advocate as a consultant. You must always make sure that the customer is satisfied with your product or service before attempting to engage them in any further engagement solutions.
Cliona talks about how important it is for The Irish Times, as a newspaper to have a balanced view of the story and a very high editorial integrity. Cliona also talks about the use of data collected from online readership being so useful for business decision making and how well the Irish times have used this to boost retention and acquisition.
In particular, Cliona talks about how the data can be used to score readers in terms of the frequency and volume or media they digest, as well as the types of articles they are interested in. Building up a really strong picture of the customer is so important. And using this data, The Irish Times can understand when a reader dips in engagement, is likely to lapse, or is prime for a subscription.
Further to excellent data capture and usage, as well as an excellent core product, Cliona goes on to talk about how The Irish Times have really understood and embraced the changing behaviours of today’s customer, and therefore their readership behaviour. People no longer sit and digest an entire newspaper. They dip in and out and focus on the content that they’re really interested in. We are all too busy to do anything else. Understanding this has led The Irish Times to really innovate in terms of how their subscription works and the benefits members can enjoy. Subscribers get access to a very popular digital crossword and are able to save articles, for example.
They’re also invited to discounted events and Cliona is implementing a feedback loop so that subscribers can engage back with the brand in a two way communication. This is leading Cliona to implement cohort based behavioral analysis to further analyze behaviors and use these learnings for business growth.
A result of which is the innovation of podcast articles that subscribers can listen to rather than read. And collaborative crosswords that friends and families can do together. This has been a great show to review because the printed media industry has had a very difficult time over the last decade or so, and it is so refreshing to hear of a brand that has embraced the changing culture shift and is innovating in this space.
You can find the main show at www.letstalkloyalty.com, and first aired on the 21st of July. 2022 episode number 252. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed my summary show. All the best and speak to you soon, Tom.
Paula: This show is sponsored by The Wise Marketer, the world’s most popular source of loyalty marketing news, insights, and research. The Wise Marketer also offers loyalty marketing training through its Loyalty Academy, which is already certified over 500 executives in 38 countries as certified loyalty marketing professionals.
For more information, check out thewisemarketer.com and loyaltyacademy.org
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