For a long time in the media industry, the end goal has been publication. The product is the destination. We worked backward from a deadline.

Our relationship with our audiences was driven by a constant search for growth. More readers, more subscriptions, more impressions. We see them as a mass, not as individuals. It’s a fundamentally one-way communication with a focus on form over function.

But today we work in a world where we’re no longer competing against each other but against the external force that is AI. And AI is a master of the print mindset. 

If our only value is publication and growth, we will lose. 

The post Where publishers should be heading in 2026: the HERO framework appeared first on Audiencers.

What you'll get from this article:

> The root cause of slow teams: teams without clarity on organisational purpose struggle with unfocused discussions, overwhelming strategic possibilities, and difficulty prioritising.

> Key warning signs of purpose misalignment: including lack of clear articulation of what makes your organisation unique, vague mission understanding, and strategic decisions that miss key opportunities.

> The "work alone together" technique: a structured alternative to chaotic brainstorming meetings that generates more focused ideas by giving team members dedicated time to work independently before collaborating.

> A complete three-session alignment process: Session 1 aligns on users, problems, and competitive advantages; Session 2 identifies differentiators and decision-making principles; Session 3 prioritises the best approach using multiple evaluation lenses.

> The foundation hypothesis statement: or how to consolidate all team alignment into one powerful framework: "If we help [customer] solve [problem] with [approach], they will choose it over [competitors] because our solution is [differentiation]"

Despite the popularity of “bias for action” approaches, many teams struggle with unfocused discussions and slow decision-making. The root cause is often a lack of clarity on organisational purpose among colleagues. This guide presents a structured template that helps teams systematically align on their target users, core problems, competitive advantages, and differentiated approach. By following this process, teams can unlock faster progress and more confident decision-making that delivers genuine value to users.

“Bias for action” is in vogue. While there are obvious benefits to focusing on execution, there is the risk of discarding the foundation needed for projects to meet milestones and goals efficiently.

The post Gain clarity on your purpose: the template that helps teams make faster, better decisions appeared first on Audiencers.

Khalil A. Cassimally for The Audiencers.

Most media organisations struggle to tap into the creative potential of their entire staff. This guide presents a practical template that helps anyone in newsrooms come up with promising ideas and turn them into strategic solutions, breaking through traditional hierarchical barriers. In doing so, it can reshape organisational culture, creating an environment where each staff feels valued, heard, and empowered to contribute to meaningful innovation.

The bulk of decisions and ideas in news organisations are usually made by leadership and other senior staff. Yet, there are more non-leadership and non-senior staff in newsrooms. What’s happening to their ideas?

The post A guide to empowering everyone in media organisations to drive meaningful innovation appeared first on Audiencers.

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.

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The post Workshop: How to define your value proposition appeared first on Audiencers.

Hello!  Welcome to the user needs email course, by Khalil A. Cassimally.

By the end of the course, you’ll know how to get internal buy-in to implement user needs, how to align user needs with your organisation’s vision, how to operationalise user needs, how to make sure user needs is for the long haul, and more.

You’ll also get frameworks and templates to help with certain phases of the implementation. And, as a bonus for those of you who make it till the end, a deck that summarises the course for your future reference.

1. What is user needs?

Media organisations need to become more audiences-informed. And many are.

• The future of our industry lies in the value we provide to people. Creating that value is grounded in journalism that addresses the needs of people.
• This has become widely accepted within our industry over the past few years.
• Now, we’re at the phase of: “okay, how do we become more audiences-informed”.

The user needs model is one way for media organisations to become more audiences-informed.

• User needs is a model that provides us with a set of needs that most people have when they’re consuming news content.
• It is not about telling the newsroom what it should or should not cover. It merely acts as a guide to do a story from an angle the audience values.
• The model captures people’s needs to: know what’s happening; understand what’s happening; be entertained or inspired; do something.

> Read more.

User needs has been implemented by many media organisations. And they’ve reaped the rewards.

• BBC News Russia tripled its audience in five years by focusing on producing content that addresses the underserved needs of people.
• The Conversation saw large increases in reader engagement and pageviews when it created a vertical that serves the needs of young professionals.

User needs works. And the good news is that anyone can implement it in a newsroom.

2. An email course to guide you in implementing user needs

I’ve developed a free email course that goes into the practicalities of implementing user needs.

• The course is intended for people in the newsroom who want to give user needs a go for the first time. And also for those who are currently implementing user needs in their newsrooms.
• Each email will go deep into the nitty gritty of implementing user needs, with actionable insights, frameworks, templates, and more.
• Oh, I’ve written the emails in the smart brevity format (to-the-point sentences, bullet points FTW!).

Subscribers get six emails over the course of six weeks. They cover:

• Understanding user needs and how to get internal buy-in.
• How to prepare for implementation
• How to do a user needs audit
• How to build a small, cross-functional team that will serve user needs
• How to focus on creating valuable content
• When, and how, to scale a user needs operation

3. Who am I? What’s my experience with user needs?

I am an advocate for more audiences-informed approaches in the media industry, and an audience development expert. I want to bring newsrooms closer to audiences.

• I first came across user needs by reading the now famous blog post by user needs godfather Dmitry Shishkin many years ago. I’ve been in contact with Dmitry and have been advocating for user needs since.
• I pioneered the implementation of the user needs model at The Conversation, initially within its UK newsroom, before overseeing deployment across more of its newsrooms worldwide.
• I also do consultations, advise and mentor teams and individuals at media organisations around the world.
• I geek out about user needs and audiences-informed journalism on LinkedIn.

4. Sign up now

See you there!

The post Implement user needs in your newsroom: email course for publishers appeared first on Audiencers.

Eric Le Braz is a journalist, previously taking editor-in-chief roles at Harvard Business Review & Prisma Media, as well as a consultant, reporter and lecturer.

We teach it to budding journalists, we recommend it as consultants and we’ve made use of it to write content for as long as we can remember. But today’s the day that we turn away from the famous inverted pyramid. Times have changed, and the arrival of paywalls means it’s time to turn to editorial narration, replacing the traditional pyramid with… an hourglass.

The post The hourglass technique: how to write for your paywall appeared first on Audiencers.

This article wrapped up:
- A decision tree, such as the one produced by our consultancy team, can prove invaluable for deciding whether an article should be free or premium
- Consider the goal of each content type (free vs premium, and even different content types within these categories)
- Traffic on paid content can be tracked and analyzed to verify your decision

Should this article be free or reserved for subscribers?

It’s a common question for publishers launching a freemium model, one of the most popular approaches for employing a subscription strategy where content is divided into free and premium.

For a metered paywall strategy, the answer’s pretty well defined (although this still depends on the publisher’s strategy)…

• Some publishers block after a user has accessed a certain number of articles
• Others present the paywall once the quota of sessions is reached
• And the Peruvian publisher, El Comercio, defines metering as blocking content 24 hours after a user’s first visit

Hard paywall models are equally clear-cut: all content is blocked.

• Financial Times is perhaps the most well recognized example of this model
• Whilst others employ a softer version where the hard paywall is preceded by a soft conversion step, as is employed by Alternatives Economiques who first block a user with a newsletter wall before a paywall on the second article.

But, for publishers employing a freemium model, it’s a little trickier. Given that content needs to fall into either free (unlocked and available for all) or premium (blocked with a paywall and reserved for subscribers), the question comes down to how to best place an article.

There’s a few things to consider, best summarized by this decision tree:

It goes without saying that this tree should also be adapted to your individual strategy, content and audience.

The goal of free content:

• Increase engagement
• Prove the value that you have to offer
• Encourage re-circulation
• Promote your premium offers
• Optional: generate leads for subscription through soft conversion strategies, including registration and newsletter sign up

The goal of premium content:

• Encourage readers to convert, especially with the content above the paywall
• Provide additional value that your readers can’t get for free
• Increase engagement for subscribers to avoid churn
• Be a product in itself

How can you know that you’re making the right decision between free or premium?

There’s an extremely useful KPI that we’d recommend tracking to ensure you’re making the right choice…

Traffic on paid (premium) content.

The basis behind this indicator is simple – out of 100 articles consumed…

• How many are free (not blocked by a paywall)?
• How many are premium (blocked by a paywall)?

Note that this metric shouldn’t be confused with the quantity of premium content produced. You could, for instance, make 80% of the articles published into premium but only have 5% of traffic on this type of content, especially if you don’t work on the visibility of these articles.

Why is traffic on paid content an important KPI to track?

The first edition of The Digital Media Review, a study run by Poool and GESTE, revealed a correlation (to a certain point) between traffic in the subscription funnel/conversions and the visibility of premium content.

If a publisher has less than 10% visibility of blocked content on their site, they won’t have any, or very few, visits to their subscription page. However, if we move to 10-40% visibility of paid content, the amount of traffic in the subscription tunnel and the rate of conversion will both increase.

Notably, though, results suggest that anything above 40% of traffic on premium content leads to the correlation no longer being valid, something that shows the importance of other factors in a successful conversion strategy, such as the publishers value proposition, user experience or engagement.  

Although we’re focussing here on a freemium strategy, this metric is applicable and valuable to any premium model. For instance, with metered approaches, traffic on premium content allows you to understand whether you’ve set the optimal quota of free articles offered prior to the paywall.  

How can you track this indicator?

Unsurprisingly, the first step is to identify the different types of content in your analytics too to be able to compare the two.

• For Google Analytics: create a personalized group and filter based on free vs premium content
• For AT Internet: use a website indicator to do the same thing as above
• Track this indicators for regular readers as well as for subscribers
• We’d recommend tracking both over time and comparing the results with you user-to-subscriber conversion rate.

You’ll end up with a graph looking something like this:

Added bonus: How can you increase the visibility of premium content?

The assumption is that you should produce more premium content to increase the visibility of this type of content. But this isn’t necessarily the best option.

Instead, you can work on making sure that the premium content that you do produce is clearly displayed and fore-fronted on your site.

• Place premium content on the homepage
• Recommend premium content within free articles
• Add a ‘tag’ to premium content to show that it’s reserved for subscribers, alerting the user to this fact before they even open this page

• Promote premium content in newsletters, on social media, etc
• Build personalized journeys for users accessing premium content through a partner’s website such as news aggregator sites, just like JDD did with upday

The post Free or Premium? The decision-making process for your articles in a freemium strategy. appeared first on Audiencers.