A TFD client needed additional requester subscriptions for their niche publication and future marketing efforts.
OBJECTIVE
The value of a lead lies in its potential to be converted into a paying customer. If the first touch effort is unsuccessful, the most valuable leads can then be nurtured through various marketing efforts, such as targeted communication, personalized content, and engagement strategies, ultimately increasing the likelihood of conversion.
For niche magazines, finding a highly targeted audience is critical to their success. Our client, an independent source for business and civil aviation news, faced a challenge when it came to acquiring new requesters for their monthly publication. Requester subscriptions serve the purpose of finding engaged readers that also count toward larger audit objectives and targets.
Our client had contracted with a local agency specializing in phone-based requester sign-ups to meet their acquisition goals. This one-touch marketing method was slow and inefficient, and our client was unable to follow up for future marketing efforts as they were obtaining only mailing information through their current strategy. TFD offered a better solution to meet its acquisition targets and audience development.
STRATEGY
Drawing on our prior experience with paid media, we chose a digital advertising strategy as an alternative acquisition channel to phone calls. We felt that we could reach their goal faster and gain valuable demographic insights for future targeted audience growth.
TACTICS
Ads Creation
Engaging and visually appealing ad creatives were designed to capture the target audience's attention and drive them to the sign-up page. The ads identified our client with their brand logo, graphics, and easily identifiable calls to action.
Targeting and Testing
The campaign was meticulously segmented to target individuals with a genuine interest in aviation and flying as well as those who previously engaged with our client. This segmentation allowed for precise targeting and reduced the cost of acquiring irrelevant leads.
TFD tested different ad platforms that have proven successful for other clients that offer subscriptions:
Facebook Ads - retargeting website visitors, social engagers, expired subscribers, excluded current subscribers
Google Search - branded keyword campaign targeting US users only
Google Performance Max Campaigns - retargeting website visitors, brand YouTube engagers, list of expired subscribers
The campaign was continuously monitored and optimized to ensure maximum cost-efficiency for lead generation. This involved adjusting ad spend, refining targeting parameters, and optimizing ad creatives based on performance data. Once all ad platforms were tested, we focused on the ad platform that had the lowest cost per acquisition and most subscriptions generated.
RESULTS
Our decision to explore digital advertising as an alternative acquisition channel yielded impressive results:
Duration: October - November 2022 and April - June 2023
Total Spend: $5,455.50
Impressions: 238,059
Results (Leads): 1,365
Average CPL: $4.00
TFD’s strategy generated 1,002 subscriptions for an average cost per lead of $4.00. We successfully acquired requesters more quickly, ensuring the client met their acquisition goals ahead of schedule. Our digital strategy, more importantly, filled out the client’s marketing funnel. The phone-based sign-ups were not able to move emails directly into the client’s CRM. By obtaining email addresses, our client is now able to continue future marketing efforts by way of newsletter sign-ups, events, and more. What were once merely requester subscriptions to the publication, serving an audit objective almost exclusively, are now contacts that are engaged more deeply with the brand, its content, and events.