Mediahuis in Belgium creates audience engagement teams to drive strategy

With four national news titles in Belgium reaching 2.1 million people a day, Mediahuis is in the same position as many publishers: as print declines, its digital subscriber base is growing. And, as that continues, digital subscriptions have become “a really interesting part of the job” for Hanne Hendrikx, manager, customer retention for Mediahuis.

She said, “The fact that we now can know, can see how people use the product, how long they read it, what they read, which topics they are interested in … that’s really the part that enriches our job,” adding, “We now have way more information about our customers and how they use us and how we can mean more to them.” That has led to a stronger engagement strategy which became a primary focus in 2020. Although early in the year they measured things like how many days a week a subscriber used the product, they didn’t have clear KPIs. So they set out to create a strategy that would increase engagement and reduce churn.