TMCnews Featured Article

One of my favorite hobbies is taking a basic, multi-purpose tool and discovering new ways that it can improve my life.

This morning, in among my daily diet of news, I asked myself how the publishing industry might benefit from more widespread use of predictive dialers.

When we think of predictive dialers, we think of massive call centers or large fundraising campaigns. But the truth is that predictive dialers have much wider applications.

Here are five ways that predictive dialers can benefit publishing companies:

Reader feedback. The relationship with readers is crucial for any publication. It defines the publication, and what is appropriate content, so healthy reader interaction is key. With a predictive dialer, publishing companies can easily deliver automated or manual reader surveys to keep a pulse on what its audience wants.

Special advertising opportunities. Readers matter for all publications, but so do advertisers. A good publication is not only about the content it delivers, but also the targeted advertising that highlights goods and services its readers will want. With a predictive dialer, publishing outfits can deliver special advertising opportunities directly to a segment of its readership that will find such products and services useful.

Renewals. We’re all busy, and it is easy to forget to renew our subscriptions to our favorite publications. But with a predictive dialer, publishers can make targeted and automatic renewal reminders so readers never have to miss a publication due to lack of time.

Event announcements. Trade shows and special events have long been a key component of most publishing outfits. Predictive dialers can help get out the word for these events. Predictive dialers can be even more useful for special events that are only offered to a small segment of the readership. It is one thing to publish an announcement for a special event, and another to call readers directly with a personalized invitation.

News flashes. Sometimes an industry has mega news that just can’t wait. In those cases, a publication can show its industry leadership and demonstrate it has its finger on the pulse of the industry by sending out alerts to its readers about the big news. This is already done with email, but how much more effective if the publishing company calls its readers about the news. With a predictive dialer, this can be made easy through an automated announcement.

There are other opportunities for predictive dialers within the publishing industry, of course. The basic idea is, start thinking outside the box.