Growth and related key performance indicators are important for media companies. This is true for both private and public broadcasters without commercial objectives. After all, the challenges posed by an increasing number of new participants, dwindling reach, changing relevance and new media consumption behavior affect all companies in this industry: “There is no such thing as a free and independent media press without a strong business side”, as the Guardian rightly pointed out back in 2013. Strategy, numbers and growth are therefore on the agenda of every media company in order to remain sustainable and independent. How companies implement their strategy and how they use software solutions to gain access to data and insights in order to achieve their goals – that’s what we explain here.
Requirements for achieving the defined goals
There are developments over which media companies have no influence: everything is changing, from markets and target groups to expectations. Nevertheless, every company can work on positioning itself more securely and achieving its goals. This includes:
What do you need to achieve these things today? Not just the willingness to change. Modern media companies are using software and technologies such as AI and data science to support their own processes in order to reduce, simplify and improve their workload.
“It is important to keep questioning the use of technology: technology must not hold you back, it must be scalable and adaptable. If companies see technology as an obstacle that slows down growth, it’s time to invest in a new tool base.”
Jochen Schon, CEO and founder, Convit GmbH
Tools from process optimization to performance analysis
When used correctly, digitalization in journalism is no longer just a challenge, but a great opportunity that promotes growth. On the one hand, it is about meaningfully digitized processes and automation that make editorial offices more efficient (e.g. through modern editorial software): Avoiding redundancies, saving resources, working collaboratively and, above all, being able to deploy skills where they are needed. This frees up time for important and creative tasks instead of blocking it in repetitive, manual ones.
But it’s not just about optimizing workflows. At the same time, technology also enables companies to become better. By using software to help media professionals analyze performance, understand the whys and wherefores and link them to their own goals and planning:
- Have I achieved my goals or reached certain target groups?
- Did the content perform and did the individual topics run well?
- Which products contribute to our overarching strategy?
Collecting and understanding data is therefore closely linked to success and growth.
Systematically reaching your goals: Implement data-based work
The fact that the basis for strategic work is primarily data and not gut feeling is nothing new for media companies. In order to achieve their goals, from reaching specific target groups to meeting certain key figures, successful media companies are already using existing data from social media, coverage reports, etc. Nevertheless, the majority still find it difficult to position themselves “audience-first” and data-based. This is also due to the fact that editorial offices work cross-media and data is therefore located in different places – in different formats.
Manually working with those numbers, extracting and combining them, is at the very least uneconomical, and very probably impossible, given the amount of data that is constantly being generated. And why not rely on machines that automatically collect all the data from a wide variety of sources, combine it in a central database and make it available for further analysis?
Keep an eye on long- and short-term goals
Such a database, in combination with the right dashboards and visualizations, enables companies to work in line with their strategy and, above all, to synchronize long-term and short-term goals. It is not only about recognizing which story has performed well on which channel, but also about linking whether this story or even the format contributes to the overarching goals.
This is precisely why we have launched our digital platform Newsmind Insight. We help media companies to establish the link between their strategy and operational tasks and to bring important insights back into the planning process. This is how companies put the strategy into practice.
Real use case
How we collaborate with the German broadcaster WDR’s data unit to combine and visualize data? We support them in building a data lakehouse and jointly develop a data foundation for metrics and dashboards to benefit from big data and cross-media reach measurement.
You also want to …
- define, review and achieve common goals?
- measure KPIs and engagement and act accordingly?
- understand your target groups and the performance of your content?
- discover trends and make data-based decisions?
Then get started and connect the linear and digital worlds on our digital platform for strategy and analysis.