Tracking the right metrics, alignment across the organization and ensuring your end user is always put first are essential factors in successful reader revenue products. And for many, including Financial Times, establishing a North Star has been the secret to achieving this.
> The Financial Times built its first North Star around RFV, scoring recency, frequency and volume of reading over 90 days. Above 18.2 a subscriber counts as engaged, and engaged readers cancel 10% less > That single number changed what got built. myFT, a lightweight way to follow chosen topics, came out of it, and merely becoming a myFT user raised engagement by 86% > The metric has moved twice since, to lifetime value in 2020 and Global Paying Audience in 2023, targeting three million by 2028. Each built on the last rather than replacing it > Underneath sits Metrics That Matter, a shared framework for seven departments so every team can see how its work feeds the top number. It also takes pressure off the North Star itself > A good North Star is single, measurable, time-bound over three to five years, and bold enough to cause slight discomfort. A vanity metric feels good without changing any decision
A North Star goal for media companies represents a guiding, overarching objective that helps align efforts and strategies towards long-term success.
- It drives decision-making
- Serves as a unifying metric for the company’s performance
- Communicates the organization’s impact and progress to the rest of the company
- Enables teams to focus on impact and sustainable, product-led growth.
FT Strategies established a checklist to help organisations create effective North Star goals, detailing that North Stars should be:
- Single, specific and measurable, so that it acts as a vehicle for ambition. This sets it apart from a traditional business plan.
- Bold enough that it challenges you and your organisation. It is based on ambition, not just a calculated projection, with a cost for not meeting it. It should cause slight discomfort.
- Achievable enough to ensure that you don’t set yourself up for failure.
- Memorable enough to keep everyone focused (e.g. the number should be rounded).
- Aspirational and purposeful, so it can inspire the whole organisation on your journey.
- Time-bound (typically 3-5 years). This creates urgency whilst also recognizing that times change.
Above all, the North Star shouldn’t be a vanity metric – a measure that lacks context, has no clear intent and doesn’t guide action or learning. I.e. metrics that make us feel good but don’t help us do better work or make better decisions.
