The National Geographic Society has enlisted Experian Marketing Services to assist in consumer targeting for its magazine division. The media company will be using Experian’s new VeriScore application.
Experian has done list processing for National Geographic for 20 years. A few years ago, National Geographic opted to use a different provider for their magazine division. The re-signing of Experian to the magazine division makes the list service the sole provider across all National Geographic’s business divisions, including catalog, book, video and expedition.
“It’s important to find people who will not only respond to an offer, but who will continue to renew their subscriptions and buy more,” said Rick Erwin, senior vice president and general manager of Experian’s Marketing Information Services business. “What VeriScore helps [National Geographic] do is to verify both the most valid, current address and that the person being mailed is highly likely to respond and continue to respond.”
Launched in October 2006, VeriScore uses Experian’s data banks to create consumer-targeting models. Desired consumers are identified through VeriScore-built models, which are created from Experian’s databases.
Key databases include Insource and BehaviorBank. Erwin describes the information as “data on everything from lifestyle and attitudes to summarized credit stats. We can identify clients who have the capacity to afford offers like the one National Geographic is making and also ones that are likely to continue with those offers.”
The system also verifies name and mailing addresses to reduce instances of undeliverable mail. Experian will also be providing merge-purge, postal pre-sort, data enhancement and list fulfillment.
National Geographic, Washington, publishes five magazine titles: National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Kids and National Geographic Explorer. The flagship magazine has a worldwide monthly circulation of 8.5 million.
Dublin, Ireland-based Experian provides analytical and information services to businesses in financial services, retail and catalog, telecommunications, utilities and other sectors.
