NY Times Uses “Cheaper, More Effective Online Tools” to Reach out for New Subscribers

An interesting quote from editor and publisher magazine. It describes the private sector coming to terms with the idea that online can offer a great deal more efficiency than direct mail in reaching out to potential subscribers. Love to see any good studies exist to compare the use of "cheaper, more effective online tools" vs direct-mail to the political sphere...if you know of any post them in the comments here....

"Like print, direct-mail is quickly becoming very retro. Even the New York Times has found recently that it is actually much more effective to sell print subscriptions by using online behavioral analysis to target likely subscribers.

The Times' marketing department recently teamed with behavioral marketing company Tacoda to collect and analyze data about the online behavior of NYTimes.com readers, which then determined which kinds of readers (by interest and geography) were most likely to subscribe to the print edition. Using cookies, the Times determined the rate of subscription conversion across all the sections of the paper as well as 350 different content categories, and cross-referenced the findings with geographic data found in the user's IP address. The paper then could market directly to those people with the highest likelihood of converting (through ads targeted to them specifically). The result, according to Tacoda's Sales Strategy VP Greg Rogers, was a vastly reduced cost-per-acquisition for the paper, and more subscriptions.

In 2006 you can't rescue floundering print products by relying on more print. To prop up and reestablish offline publications you need to work with cheaper, more effective online tools and use your Web presence to highlight your brand to a worldwide audience, some part of whom might be interested enough in your content to buy a print subscription." (cross posted at mobiledemocracy blog)