The internet, iPads and smartphones have liberated information in new, and often unexpected, ways. Marketers now have the opportunity to sell highly tailored subscription services, slicing and dicing existing content for audiences that are defined by both traditional brand loyalties and by entirely new information demands.
To sell to these new audiences effectively, marketers need to know more about their client base as a whole, across all brands and services as internal promotional channels are highly efficient, especially in niche markets.
1. Simplify subscription sales and marketing
Marketing products and selling them on your website shouldn’t be so difficult. For years, marketers have struggled to join up product and subscription sales (print, online, bundles, and now mobile/tablet) and present a clean set of options to the site user typically because they have different systems managing content and client data for print, web and internet. We can all learn from the Retail sector how to sell products online. It’s not rocket science!
2. Experiment to find the right digital access model
At some point in the near future, if not already, you are going to need to think about generating more revenue from your online content, and not many publishers know where the sweet spot is when putting up the paywall or registration barrier for their online content. Traditional time-based, incremental registration, metered access, PPV – flexibility is the key here. When selecting your technology partner, make sure they offer flexible access control models which let you experiment at will – don’t get tied into a model which is really expensive to change – the chances are you won’t get it right first time round.
3. Create a unified view of your clients
As a financial services marketer, you should know who your clients are and what they are buying – sounds simple doesn’t it? But how many of you really know if the person going to your events is the same person buying access to your website and subscribing to an email newsletter? It’s hard to find one system that natively handles all this audience and client data, so choose a system which can unify disparate data sources into a single view and you should improve your levels of client service and maximise cross-sell and upsell opportunities.
4. Develop your audience using analytics and insight
Your clients are at the core of your business, but what about all of the valuable audience data you are collecting around that core? Think about your website registered users and leads generated by marketing campaigns – these are your future clients. With the right database technology and business intelligence tools you can develop your audience based on trend analysis and insight across all brands, products and services.
5. Discover, develop and create new products
Once you have the above elements in place you can iterate through the lifecycle and drive your business forward, identifying new product development strategies based on analysing the data at your fingertips and turning your audience into new clients.
