Data: Meet reader – Bringing customers to life with data

Tom Betts, Head of Data Analytics for FT.com, spoke about how customer centricity at the Big Data for Media conference on May 8 in London, sponsored by World Newsmedia Network and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Customer centricity is important for media and how FT.com is using reader data. FT.com has 25 people working in the analytics helping editorial department, marketing and product development.

FT pioneered the metered model. Today they have 415 000 digital subscribers globally and the amount is growing every year, last year 31%. Digital subscriptions exceed print circulation and now almost 2/3 of subscriptions are digital.

”We quickly came to realise that actually, the real power of the subscription relationship comes from the data.”, says John Ridding, CEO of FT.

That is why FT has the philosophy in putting the customer in the center of all the platforms and has one license for every platform. 

Every reader has a FT customer DNA, which tells the readers interest in different content sections.

FT uses the reader data for:

- understanding customer content preferences

- increasing the relevance of FT’s communications

- personalising FT’s offering

- deploying intelligence to customer touch points – e.g. in customer service, web site, mobile apps, 3^rd parties

The increasing use of mobiles have changed the consumption habits dramatically. Now readers can access content, where ever they want and they use different platforms for different purposes. 

"That is why we need to research the reader habits in all the platforms. Researching just website isn't enough. You have to understand the whole ecosystem to see the bigger picture.", Tom Betts says.

"But you have to be careful, what you conclude about the data and what correlates", Betts says.

The reader data from different platforms have to also be joined together to understand the reader and their customership.

Reader habits have changed, eg. FT.com's biggest peak is in the morning, when people are getting 

ready for work. So to meet reader demands, FT has changed the publishing rhythm.

Reader data empowers also the editorial and everybody inside FT can access the content data, which gives people indicators, what is important in a story, e.g.  content engagement triggers and social relevance of content.

Analysing the data for right time and right place led FT to come up with the concept of FastFT – fusing breaking market-moving news with informed comment. Up to the minute, 24 hours a day covering the global markets accros all platforms. 

But not all readers are digital junkies. FT was good in understanding the reader and what they do, but they were not good in understanding why they are reading. So they added customer research to analytics. Now FT is focusing on customer needs, e.g. FT is an occasional news source or FT is a primary news source for the reader and how to engage them more and move the free readers to paying customers.