What made you want to work in the publishing industry?

I was moving home to Bath and there was a job at Future publishing. I had no idea about magazines, publishing or subscriptions but I went for it and I got it. That was 16 years ago so I obviously enjoyed it and I still enjoy it.

Chart your career from the start to where you are now.

I started off in B2C marketing, for the first 2 years of my career and then I moved into publishing and subscriptions marketing via Future Publishing where I spent 7 years. I then moved to London and worked at Readers Digest and then at News International (now NewsUK). I spent two years at Bauer Media and after that joined Immediate Media in 2014.

What have you identified about the typical Immediate customer during your time as Subscriptions Director?

We have got an upmarket profile across our portfolio and great products that feed into people’s passions, which the Immediate strategy is all about. This combination produces amazing levels of loyalty across our brands, which delivers high levels of retention, some of the highest I’ve seen in the industry

What has consumer behaviour looked like over this period?

We have seen astonishing levels of growth. On our acquisitions, we have seen 200-300% growth on our monthly titles and with Radio Times, we have seen a 500% increase, which is equivalent to tens of thousands of new subscribers. It has made clear that our products our highly valued and they form a regular part of peoples lives. We have had a lot of customer feedback as not only are people amazed we are still getting the products out the door, but it’s also a highlight of their week when their subscription arrives.

Are you starting to learn anything new about customer habits following COVID-19?

Our websites have seen phenomenal statistics with their digital traffic, which has given us new audiences to engage with and the wider work of the Immediate group to harness this and make it work for us has been key to the success we have seen. It has also become clear that our audiences are really determined to get their copies. Radio Times for example has a very habituated newsstand audience as well as a subscription audience, but with the closure of many high street shops and a reluctance to go to shops, we knew our newsstand audience would find it hard to get their copies. So, we adapted our marketing to address their specific needs during lockdown and we have seen a great response from them to subscriptions.

Has the success your having with subscriptions balance out the loss of sales at newsstands?

It does actually and as newsstands start to come back, we are seeing that some of our titles are on or up on budget because they are doing well on both sides. I think this really shows that the audience for our product is out there and that people are keen to get hold of and enjoy the magazines.

What was your subscription strategy before COVID and how has it changed?

Nothing has fundamentally changed. We still utilise acquisition offers according to what audience we are targeting. We don’t offer unsustainable discounts and offers to get volume through the door and instead focus on direct debit to encourage loyalty. Those habitual newsstand buyers for Radio Times are not that keen to take out a subscription because they don’t like direct debit and instead prefer to support their newsagents. However, during these times they can’t do that, so we put out an offer that was short-term, ensuring they could then go back to the newsagents to buy their copies once they reopened. By tailoring that offer and working with that audience to make sure they could still get their copy, we have seen a lot of success with this strategy.

How can Immediate keep these high levels of subscribers following all of this?

We don’t know how these new acquisitions are going to behave so this is the question we all wish we had the answer to. We feel confident that they will stick with us and while habituated newsstand buyers may not keep their subscription, they will still go back to newsstands to continue buying the product. We know that no matter what, we will come out of this with a higher subscriptions base than what we went into it with and the fact that some of our magazines are on or up on budget shows that the audience are flowing through. We know that when we get these products into people’s hands, our content is fantastic, and people really value it.

What’s on your radar?

Customer engagement and retention and what more we can do to enhance that subscription experience. Whether that’s at the start of the journey and how we talk to them or how we optimise the journey through to when they get their first magazine. COVID has accelerated some of our thinking and execution of ideas around all of this. As we get new people coming through our ecommerce sites, it is important to optimise the customer journey to make the process as seamless as possible and analyse the sticking points.

What magazine would you stockpile?

BBC Good Food and Radio Times are essentials but also any travel magazine to keep me going until I can go back on holiday again.