Mediahuis, headquartered in Belgium, set itself the goal of implementing a fully automated data-driven customer journey with the aim of increasing revenue and reducing churn.

With this in mind, the company wants to target its potential and existing customers with the best registration offer, the best sales offer, and the best retention journey in an automated, efficient, and personalised manner.

In recent years, Mediahuis, has rapidly developed and acquired several media groups, such as NDC mediagroep in the Netherlands in 2020 and Ireland’s Independent News & Media in 2019. The company is now active in four countries, counts some 4,300 employees, and says it brings in 1 billion euros in revenue per year.

“The main question among all our entities, at least from a data science and business perspective, is how do you acquire new subscribers, keep current subscribers happy, and retain those subscribers, while doing this in the most efficient, personalised manner,” said Jessica Bulthé, Data Science Business Partner at Mediahuis during WAN-IFRA’s recent Digital Media Europe conference.

“The answer? A data-driven customer journey.”
Why retention policy deserves priority
Using a churn propensity prediction model, Mediahuis is targeting a selection of existing customers who seem likely to churn but worthwhile to keep, and who could potentially be convinced to stay on.

“In an era of relatively scarce small data, for instance, one CRM database is more or less manag...