Guardian in DM push to promote Berliner revamp

by Noelle McElhatton, Marketing Direct 26-Oct-05

The Guardian supported its successful Berliner launch last month with a direct marketing campaign that involved setting up a contact centre specifically to gain reader feedback.

The paper sent door drops and discount vouchers to more than three
million UK homes a week before the Berliner edition hit the newsstands
on 12 September.

Readers on The Guardian's CRM database received emails on the Friday

before the relaunch, urging them to buy a copy of the new-look paper on

Monday.

The paper encouraged readers to phone with their reactions to the
editorial changes. "We made a policy decision to engage in dialogue with
readers and so we set up a multimedia contact centre," said Charles
Ping, head of customer relationship management at The Guardian, who
spent five days in the contact centre. "Thousands have told us what they
think - you can't get more direct than that."

The axed Doonesbury cartoon, for example, was reinstated after readers
registered their protests.

The relaunch edition generated a 40 per cent increase in sales. The
Guardian's average headline circulation for August was 341,689 copies,
suggesting the paper could have sold more than 450,000 on relaunch
day.

Although Ping describes the direct marketing campaign behind the
relaunch as "significant", its cost is likely to be a drop in the ocean
compared with the £80 million invested overall in switching the
newspaper to the smaller format.