Seeking to grow its readership, better serve advertisers and expand its product offerings, the St. Petersburg Times is set to announce today it has signed an agreement with Marketing G2 to develop and manage a marketing database.
The database will be built on Marketing G2’s Open Intelligence architecture and accessed through the Alterian Marketing Suite, which features an integrated data analysis and campaign management system. Marketing G2 , Philadelphia, provides customer intelligence and data integration services to media companies. Alterian, based in Chicago and Bristol, in Britain, is a global provider of integrated database marketing, customer insight and marketing execution solutions.
The Pulitzer prize-winning St. Petersburg Times is Florida’s largest newspaper with a circulation of 327,390 daily and 420,811 Sunday.
One of the last independently owned newspapers in the United States, the Times is owned by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit school for journalists based in St. Petersburg.
The St. Petersburg Times like many newspapers throughout the country, is facing the challenge of increased competition for readers and advertisers. As a result, the newspaper company is pursuing an effort to attract new readers and develop specialized news and advertising options. Supporting this strategy will be the Open Intelligence database and Alterian technology, branded and managed as G2 Discovery by Marketing G2.
The St. Petersburg Times said that the G2 Discovery affords the Times marketing staff hands-on access to market data and the ability to conduct data analysis and develop campaigns directly from this information.
The Open Intelligence G2 Discovery solution supports multi-channel campaign management, allowing newspapers to communicate with customers through direct mail, telemarketing and e-mail.
The database can be updated in real-time with Web events, and nightly, based on circulation events. Newspapers can tackle new media initiatives, roll out new products and increase subscriber sales, service and retention rates. G2 Discovery currently includes automated list creation and campaign tools customized to newspaper data and application needs.
Marketing G2 will also provide the Times with an online customer service tool called Subscriber Concierge, which uses the same Open Intelligence database as G2 Discovery. Integrated with a newspaper’s Website, Subscriber Concierge helps customers access their subscription accounts to manage billing, payment, vacation starts and stops, and interface directly with the newspaper’s operational systems. Additionally, new customers can sign up for home delivery, driven by personalized marketing offers.
