Thanks to the integration of all kinds of sources of customer information, Bohn Stafleu van Loghum (BSL) can approach customers in an increasingly targeted way. This is important for the media company because much less marketing information is distributed that goes unread. For customers, it means that they have to search much less for information they need. And now publishers and editors also get better insight into what customers really want because BSL can measure everything. Michael Dam, Manager of Marketing at BSL, talks about the added value of integrated customer management.
Solutions & results
360 degree customer view
50 to 60 million personalized e-mails per year
Privacy proof
Specific and up-to-date information
"About eight or nine years ago, the realization dawned that the data on our customers was too fragmented, and the realization grew that we were not taking advantage of opportunities with it. The previous years had been turbulent across the industry, including for BSL. Components were acquired or divested, publishing houses merged and were split. Each fund, sometimes even each publication, had its own customer database with its own software and unique structure. Around that time, BSL came into contact with Ternair. They had software to access all those different systems as one system, allowing us to track customers across titles."
All actions and developments in one place
In the meantime, customer information has long since gone beyond what is in the customer database. Data from online platforms, order information from the web shop, data from the various subscription databases and the event registration infrastructure also show what a customer is doing, when and to what extent. Michael Dam: "Now that information is accessible through a single data warehouse, so we have a 360-degree customer view of who all customers are, what they purchase, what they do, what they consult and when and how often they do so. We can also analyze developments in them. This is important to send only relevant offers when setting up marketing channels and not bother customers with information that is not relevant. But we also use it in analyzing the customer work process: we know better and better what information our customers want to receive through which channels and what not. So we have less and less to try out and wait to see if it catches on, but can develop in a much more targeted way. That applies not only to marketing communications but also to product development."
"With a 360-degree customer view, we know from all customers who they are, what they purchase, what they do, what they consult and when and how often they do so. In addition, we can analyze the developments in them. This is important to send only relevant offers when setting up the marketing channels and not to bother customers with information that is not relevant."
All the effects of email marketing
"Each year, we send 50 to 60 million emails via Ternair Marketing Cloud, Ternair's campaign management solution. Half of those are newsletters from our various brands, the other half are campaigns," Dam says. To put that in perspective, that includes major titles such as Skipr and Nursing (which is read by the majority of all Dutch nurses). "Ternair records how often a newsletter is opened and what is clicked on. We get all the data clearly presented on a dashboard that we set up with the visualization tool Microsoft Power BI. We can immediately see the performance of the various newsletters and campaigns. In addition, we can unlock all customer data in this tool and combine it with each other to closely monitor developments among our customers and subscribers. With Ternair, we can also perform A/B testing so that we know exactly which approach best suits the needs and behavior of a particular target group. We can even see how loyal customers are. Based on data, we can reasonably predict which customers will consider canceling their subscriptions when, and we can plan specific retention actions and set up customer journey flows accordingly."
Offering more targeted information
The way in which trade media are used is changing. As a media company, it is no longer enough to offer large piles of information; you have to play a role in how customers solve their problems. This is only possible if you know the customer and his needs well. The supply of professional information must increasingly match the work processes of users. "These work processes are constantly changing. So we have to constantly adapt our offer so that our information continues to match those work processes. So we do not make a static analysis but look at developments in real time. And we share what developments we see in the use of the information with the various publishing teams: they then also see which topics are popular with users and in what form we can best offer that information.
