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FIGARODIGITAL.CO.UK BEN CORDLE
Marketing Director, New Scientist
WEEKLY 22 October 2016 KIDS UNLIMITED Stem cell success could end infertility
enthusiasts who are unlikely to become subscribers without a sophisticated nurture program.”
Initial Split
In order to eff ectively nurture that diverse audience, the fi rst task for New Scientist’s marketing team was to fi nd out who they were, how they were consuming content, and what opportunities that could present for development of the brand’s products. New Scientist worked with research
agency Tapestry to carry out a large-scale audience segmentation study, using both ethnographic data and one on one interviews to defi ne three clear groups. These three categories of consumer are distinctive in the way that they are consuming content, and their preferred medium is also indicative of the changing user experience. “Our print subscribers tend to be
slightly older, with an average age in the late forties. They are long-term readers, the average subscriber being with us for about 7 years and counting. They look to New Scientist to give them a broad overview of the latest developments in science and technology, and to keep them informed.” Explains Cordle. “Our digital audience is about 10-15 years younger. Their motivations are similar, but they prefer the digital medium, and tend to be interested in a slightly narrower fi eld of science, for example physics, or health. There is also an increasingly large audience of customers for other products, who don’t subscribe, but do have a passion for science.” Once the initial research had defi ned
these three “headline” customer demographics; the Passive, Active and Expert science enthusiasts, it became clear that they were each unique both in their preferred consumption of content, and the subject matter they were interested in pursuing. “The Passives were happy to read something within their social media timeline, or an accessible science documentary on TV (Planet Earth, Brian Cox etc.), but were unlikely to take it much further.” Continues Cordle. “The Actives were people with a keen
interest in one or two areas of science only. They’d fi nd a story serendipitously, but then actively seek out more information. That’s how they would get to us. The Expert group has both breadth and depth of science knowledge. They are very familiar with New Scientist, and represent the majority of our customer base.”
Digging Deeper
Once these groups had been identifi ed however, the team was left with another challenge. “Macro groups of this size are somewhat impractical.” Continues Cordle. “Demographically, attitudinally, geographically, thematically, they’re too diverse. For us to be able to target, recruit and cater for new audiences better, we need to group them into sub segments with more uniform characteristics.” By asking more detailed questions, the
team were able to map this newly re-segmented audience against New Scientist’s product off ering, to discover the most eff ective ways of communication between these groups. “We wanted to group people by how we would fi nd them – the media they consume, where they live, where they go out and who they spend time with, and which motivations we would need to use to persuade them. This helps with how we craft marketing messages, but also guides editorial in terms of tone and topics.”
Getting The Tone Right
With such a diverse customer base, New Scientist must carefully attribute the right voice to the right product, in order to strike a chord across its diverse readership. As a result, the publication sees high levels of engagement across its product range, while maintaining the credibility which defi nes its standing as one of the most highly-regarded science publications. “There are several extremely popular science websites, on the web, on app and on social. They resonate with some of these groups because they’re fast, fun, light-hearted, but also actively avoided by others for those
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