The third edition of the Table Stakes, a programme led by WAN-IFRA in partnership with the Google News Initiative Digital Growth Programme, has seen 23 publishers from around Europe work on a new, audience-first mindset to implement in their companies.
We look at two case studies from the latest report "Building and engaging specific audiences". But the main lesson is that publishers committed to identifying specific target audiences and their needs are succeeding in the digital environment. Producing general news for the general public no longer makes the cut.
The challenge is to correctly identify these audiences that can be defined by geography or interest and work out how to fulfil their needs.
Gaining younger readers and increasing digital revenue
One of the participants, regional Swedish news publisher NWT, tackled the problem of an ageing subscriber base in print and the difficulty to attract new younger paying digital readers. The average age of their print reader is 71 and digital growth could not compensate for the speed of losing print subscribers. Its objective was to increase the number of paying readers under 45 and get them to stay.
The publication has a hard paywall, with articles free only for the first hour after their publication. 70 per cent of its revenue comes from readers and 30 per cent is generated by advertising.
The newsroom alone could not solve this, so the publisher created a cross-departments working group that went on identifying user needs of the under 45s. As it needed more detail, the audience was split into 18-to-29-year-olds who were found to favour reading about entertainment, relationship and touching stories, careers and breaking news. 30-to-45-year-olds were interested in stories about society and investigative journalism, real estate, new stores and restaurants, and kids and family life.
"We almost immediately started producing both journalism and marketing activities totally focused on the challenge statement and the new knowledge we had around these target groups. We could instantly see the results with early wins and reaching the set goals," says Patric Hamsch, deputy head of media and responsible for NWT’s Table Stakes Europe participation in the report.
The projects aimed at young audiences included a series about new graduates that featured reporting from a student trip to Ayia Napa, and "Värmlands ugliest tattoo" where readers were asked to send their own examples. This new type of content helped the publisher increase its digital reach among 18-to-39-year-olds by around 10 per cent and its digital revenue improved more than expected.
Six steps that NWT advises to follow to reach more young readers, as quoted in the report:
- Learn more about younger audience's needs, interests, problems and passions
- Start to produce relevant content for the right people, on the right channels at the right time
- Educate and recruit both current and new staff
- Radically change the current digital product to serve younger audiences. Constantly test and evaluate against set goals
- Develop and implement a social media strategy
Increasing engagement among young professionals
The UK-based publisher The Conversation experimented with a new approach to commissioning articles. The team decided to target young professionals in their twenties and thirties based in the UK and formed a cross-functional team of editors and audience development people to understand and serve this target audience.
They used just two metrics - completions and staying rate - to monitor the success of the articles and user engagement. The result was a launch of a new series Quarter Life, featuring articles for young professionals.
The outcome was a 60 per cent greater share of UK readers and a 45-50 per cent greater completion rate. If you want to learn more about the process, listen to our podcast with Avery Anapol, commissioning editor of The Conversation.
You can access the full "Building and engaging specific audiences" report here.
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