Image Courtesy of MailChimp
Being a Business Student at the University of Brighton i have often had to read articles or source information from one of the most authoritative newsagents in the world : The Economist.
The Economist is considered nowadays one of the best papers and one that nearly all business graduates should at least sift through monthly to keep themselves informed on the world both from a cultural and a political standpoint.
The Economist business model is quite interesting since it allows limited access to articles on the website. If i am not mistakes it totals to 1 a day.
Unfortunately that means 2 things for the company :
- Clients only read a few articles every time
- Clients are not retained and are not a source of major income
So how does a 61 million £ business encourage clients to visit the Economist articles and website? By e-mail obviously.
E-mails are, despite what people might believe, still one of the major forms of ROI (Return on Investment) compared to other forms of Online Marketing as cited in the Journal of Business Research (Chadwick, 2012).
Now full disclosure i receive the Economist newsletter, rarely read it unfortunately (yes i know i’m a lazy human being), and i did provide my personal e-mail to receive the notifications. This is a significant element since it renders the brand stronger. Imagine if it was Spam…it’s reputation, built over years (centuries by now) would be severely damaged.
The articles provided in the newsletter are recent and topical. They are also tastebites on what is available and possible to read on their website.
When i subscribed to the Economist e-mail i provided alot of data that could be used to target me and draw me in easily…Data such as age (22), sex (male), country of origin (Italy). Additional information such as job position and industry could have been inserted but since the “student” option is unavailable i haven’t given them better targeting data.
Despite that i am shown articles about Hillary, Stock investments, Unpaid Internships in the UK and Baggage loss one day, Southafrican Corruption and Hollande popularity the next. Only the Unpaid Internships and how the Uk government is trying to counter the firms exploitation of this loophole is “Theoretically” important and relevant to me.
Had they sent me articles on the Italian Referendum occuring on the 4th of December, articles about Theresa May and her Brexit Negotiations, articles about student working opportunities growing or anything of the sort i would be “theoretically” more involved and interested.
As such it seems that there is no “personalisation” to my e-mail reader experience.
Don’t get me wrong the Newsletter is following all the Industry standards highlighted in numerous studies such as the Chadwick (2012) one highlighted before.
It has images, hyperlinks, advertising and the brand logo present in the letter. It is also of moderate length ranging in the 2 and a half pages range (slightly above the 2.4 pages Industry standard). This is a good sign because it shows that the company is having the right ideas and is most probably ahead of the curve in comparison to other pubblications.
But it could be better…
Many E-mail marketing blogs and e-mail marketing websites such as MailChimp and Hubspot provide valuable tools and tips on how to better target to costumers such as pre-built segmentation or further targeting information tips and tricks.
My suggestion to the Economist, in my humble opinion, would be Twofold:
- Target Customers better and according to their data
Use the data insight of e-mail readers (both subscribers and non-subscribers users) to better target readers and determine thanks to clickthrough rates what readers want.
- Gather Further information on what customers want
Gather insight into what readers would like to read by providing “targeting options” which can be in the form of Account preferences, click-to-article statistics and focus group statistics (the last can be very expensive to set up).
Overall i am happy with the e-mails and will try my best to read them more often. I do like the Economist and hope they survive the printed media squeeze currently occuring both now and in the future. But to do so the company cannot afford to coast by based only on reputation alone and must take risks and embrace innovation.
But let’s admit to it you probably all fell asleep wilst reading this…
If you haven’t please feel free to leave a comment, give an insight or to tweet me at @Akeengancu