Key findings from the Google News Initiative’s (GNI) Europe Subscriptions Lab will be unveiled in a virtual town hall hosted by the International News Media Association (INMA) on Thursday, November 5. The town hall is free and open to the public with registration.
In addition to the livestream session from 14:00 to 16:30 GMT (15:00 to 17:30 CET) November 5, town hall registrants will receive access to the session recording, all presentations, and a new report based on Lab learnings titled “Towards Your North Star: A Report On the Outcomes of the European GNI Subscriptions Lab 2020.” To register for the virtual town hall for free, click here
FT Strategies and INMA, in partnership with the Google News Initiative, established the GNI Subscriptions Lab in Europe to engage publishers in a journey designed to help them define an ambitious vision for their digital subscription business and build the engine that will take them to their goal.
Since March, the Google News Initiative, FT Strategies, and INMA have worked extensively with eight European news publishers in the early stages of their subscription journey to strengthen digital capabilities and grow reader revenue. Key areas of focus include creating loyal paying relationships with readers, optimising the engagement and subscription funnel and embracing a reader-first strategy and culture.
The European Subscriptions Lab participants include Bonnier News Local, Sweden; La Croix, France; Dennik N, Slovakia; Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland; The Independent, United Kingdom; Kurier, Austria; El Mundo, Spain; and RP Online, Germany.
The “Towards Your North Star” report will highlight challenges and blockers to subscription success at the eight European publishers that participated in the Subscriptions Lab. The report also will look at how to commit your company to create value for readers, build a fast-learning and driven organisation, and how best to empower your company with data.
The Town Hall aims to cut across hundreds of hours of training, discussions, and group exercises to cover how the publishers overcame the inevitable “blockers” to subscription growth, the details of “North Star” metrics, aligning business objectives and cultures around their North Stars, creating a suitable transformation process, comparison of European experiences with the Google News Initiative’s similar labs in North America and Latin America.
The November town hall will feature representatives of Lab publishers talking about strategic alignment, customer knowledge, and experimentation. INMA CEO Earl Wilkinson will moderate the town hall, with Google News Initiative’s Bénédicte Autret, FT Strategies’ Lou Gautier, and INMA’s Greg Piechota presenting results and findings.
