What’s your name and position within the organisation?
Nick Green
Head of Sport – Commercial, The Telegraph
Give us a brief overview of The Telegraph as a company
The Telegraph has been a part of people’s lives for 165 years and this year our quality journalism has never been more important or in demand. So much so, we’ve recently recorded our biggest ever multiplatform audience of 29 million – that’s over half of the UK adult population.
Our focus is not about scale though. To future proof our business our strategy is to bring our audiences closer to us and brands. To pioneer new ways to serve at least 10 million registered customers and 1 million subscribers by 2023 through quality journalism and experiences. To achieve this, our newsroom is working harder than ever to attract, engage and retain readers who want to know what’s going on in the world – and what we think about it. Who share our passion for progress, politics, sport and the very best in life. And readers who are happy to make a commitment to our brand by becoming long-term, valuable subscribers. We are pleased to announce that we are well over half way to our target with 6.8million registered customers and 522k subscribers – a strong 23 per cent growth in subscribers since January.
How does The Telegraph’s subscriber-first strategy benefit commercial partners?
Firstly, it provides an identified audience. We now only use rich, first-party data to target campaigns. This approach has helped us to open up twice as much of our brand-safe inventory and is delivering 35 per cent better ad engagement metrics when comparing audience targeting to run of site activity.
Secondly, it provides a more engaged audience. Our focus on providing the very best, beautifully presented quality journalism means that our subscribers are returning to read our content three times a day on average. Plus, our digital subscribers are now acting more like newspaper readers – starting at the front on our homepage before navigating to the biggest stories of the moment. As a result they consume four times more content per visit than anonymous readers and spend an extra 15 minutes enjoying our content per visit.
Finally these highly engaged subscribers are a lot more valuable to your brand. They are 40 per cent more likely to recall your ad and importantly, 31 per cent more likely to act on it. So your campaigns work much harder.
What have The Telegraph’s Sport readers been enjoying recently?
While this year has been unpredictable, one thing that has remained steadfast is our audience’s unrelenting love for sport. Even when there was no live action our reader numbers and engagement levels were higher than the equivalent period last year. All of which illustrates our readers’ passion to keep up to date with the news and the impact of all that happens in sport. The return of the live action in June was very welcome with our coverage providing access to fans unable to return to their clubs. Popular in the past month has been our analysis of the new football season, the thrilling F1 races, the delayed finale of the rugby season, the excitement from the US Open and the action from the Tour de France. This month has also seen our multi award-winning Women’s Sport team focus on grassroots and how Covid is widening the gender activity gap for women and girls. It has also published multiple exclusive interviews including one with cricket’s tearaway teenager, Issy Wong who is set to break the 80mph barrier while our live blog for the Naomi Osaka US Open title win performed particularly well with subscribers and anonymous readers alike.
What can we get excited about in 2021?
The Telegraph has always led the way for sport because of its unrivalled team of writers, brilliant columnists and the sheer breadth and depth of coverage. 2021 promises to be the team’s busiest ever year in terms of live events with the Olympics, Euros, a Lions Tour to South Africa, Ryder Cup, Women’s Rugby World Cup, and the return of Wimbledon and The Open to name but a few. As always we will be there covering all of the build-up, action and reaction across print, digital and increasingly popular platforms like newsletters, podcasts, social and WhatsApp. If your brands would like to partner with us on any of these events, then please do get in touch at nick.green@telegraph.co.uk We are fully aware that nothing will be certain next year, so we will work with you on a flexible and agile approach to deliver the best outcomes for all.
