Data – how you segment and target your readership – is an increasingly important aspect both of content marketing and publishing in general. This piece looks at the FT‘s efforts and how the organisation uses data to drive readership and interaction.
It provides two particularly interesting insights. One is the decision to keep data analysts in the newsroom so they can work with journalists more closely. The other is the FT‘s reliance on email to drive engagement. Despite the runaway growth of social media, good old email still gives the highest response rates by a mile.
Much of the FT‘s success in this sphere is down to its subscription model, which enables editors and marketing executives to know more about its readers. That is good for the FT, though other publishers may not find it easy to emulate. Companies, on the other hand – the likes of banks or fashion retailers – have a better opportunity to find out more about their customers. The bigger challenge may be to use that data in the right way.
With companies spending millions on building followings on Snapchat, there might be simpler and cheaper methods of building engagement. Data could be one of them.
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Knowledge is power: using data effectively is part of Content24, the online magazine for London content-marketing agency FirstWord.
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