Voetbal International: Personalization based on club love
Dave van den Berg is customer relations manager at Football International, or as he himself calls it: head of customer happiness. Because only if customers are happy with their subscription will they stay. With personalized, digital communication, he has new opportunities to keep the customer happy and thus keep them as a subscriber.
Although personalization with print is not impossible, it is a lot more laborious than digital. Van den Berg: “When FC Twente became champion of the Kitchen Championship Division in 2019, we sent magazines with an FC Twente cover to our subscribers and outlets in the eastern part of the country. That's less common in the rest of the country, so they got a different cover. But that is expensive and logistically complicated. In addition, Twente fans also live in the rest of the country and there are people from Twente who are fans of other clubs. With digital editions, that's all much easier: as soon as someone takes out a subscription, we note, among other things, which club someone belongs to, so we can occasionally capitalize on that.”
New system, new opportunities
In 2019, Voetbal International (VI) was separated from WPG Media and purchased by Digital Enterprises. That is why they were no longer able to use WPG's customer systems and had to look for a suitable solution. This should not only support the processes surrounding the paper edition, but also be prepared for a more digital future. “We then investigated which systems are on the market and what they can do. With Zeno, Socho turned out to be the best fit for what we were looking for. And they have a lot of experience in the publishing industry. That was also evident when we got into a conversation: they understood well which way we want to go with the magazine and with the online services.”
Fully cross-media
At Football International, paper and digital are not each other's opponents, but teammates who reinforce each other. Around 80% of the new subscribers to VI PRO, the digital subscription form, come via the site. The site and app contain messages that everyone can read and Pro stories that are accessible only to subscribers. During the European Championships, VI increased the number of Pro messages that appeared per day: “We see that this increases the value of the subscription for existing subscribers and also increases the appeal for new subscribers.”
Van den Berg: “The different editions have their own dynamics. On Wednesdays, the magazine is delivered to subscribers. Then many of our readers sit back and relax, read a few articles in a row and check the magazine to make sure they haven't missed any news about their club during the week. The messages on the site and the videos on YouTube (132,000 subscribers) are mostly up to date: you can read or watch them to stay up to date.”
More personalization
Numerous options are still being developed to further personalize the relationship between title and reader. “VI is the only title at Digital Enterprises that also appears on paper. All their other expenses are electronic only. As a result, we now have access to a lot of knowledge about digital publishing, which we make good use of. I consult weekly with two Digital Enterprise colleagues about new services and improvements to the existing ones. For example, we're now looking at whether we can use push messages to encourage people to subscribe, and whether we can send subscribers push messages other than non-subscribers.
All these personalized services are only possible because we have linked Zeno to both the website, the app and the back office. That's why we have options to make it more personal with every customer contact.”
Favourite club and more
Personalization now starts as soon as someone subscribes. Then Zeno states what someone's favorite club is and what other topics he or she is interested in, for example which competitions someone attends, or who is interested in talent development, etc. “Based on that, everyone gets a news offer on the site or app that's set to those preferences, but we don't just use that data online. As a welcome gift, each new subscriber automatically receives a special that he or she chooses themselves. And if someone is a long time member and something goes wrong with delivery or something, customer service can offer an appropriate special to make up for it. That is also a matter of ticking and the system takes care of the rest.”
Just another European Championship
Although the European Football Championship did not turn out to be what many had hoped for, it has been and remains a hectic period for a football magazine marketer. “You see that at a major tournament, a lot of people come to us who don't follow club competitions closely, but want to stay up to date at major tournaments. The type of subscriptions that are taken out also shows that the interests of the Orange follower are different from that of the competition follower. During the European Championships, 80% of the cases involved a relatively short annual subscription and 20% an annual subscription, then it was the other way around. Now it is important to keep the Orange fans and convert their subscriptions to longer-running variants. We use the price a little bit for that: a subscription for a longer period is relatively cheaper than for a short period of time, but ultimately, the content, the videos we make, the stories we tell, are the argument for becoming a subscriber.”
Is such a personal approach only sympathetic or effective? Van den Berg: “We are still working with it too briefly to make firm statements about whether personalization works or not. We are seeing positive trends, but we still have too few hard figures. To make sure it works, you should also talk to subscribers, because numbers don't always tell the whole story. But we do expect it to meet subscribers' needs. And if the subscribers are happy with it, so am I.”
All these personalized services are only possible because we have linked Zeno to both the website, the app and the back office. That's why we have options to make it more personal with every customer contact. - Dave van den Berg
