The printed newspaper is still very important at Clarín in Argentina. 

With good margins, the platform is poised to be well-positioned in the revenue mix for many more years. Beyond that, a strong asset of the newspaper is the clout it holds in society, Javier Kraviez, chief digital officer, told INMA members during the recent Latin American News Media Summit: “Maybe in the future print will no longer be the central pillar of the strategy, but I can guarantee it will be part of the media mix.”

Kraviez then set a scene for a common metaphor, describing a group of people meeting in a room but all ignoring a large elephant next to them. Print circulation and advertising revenues are declining, creating a need for digital transformation and a new balance of revenue. Kraviez said while some companies are ignoring this elephant, Clarín is aware of this shift and recognises its potential.

“We’ve come to stay,” Kraviez said. “With these indicators, we can say the world is changing and the companies need to change themselves.”

The importance of data

Data can be a critical resource in the journey to growing digital revenue. Major digital players like Google and Meta are rich with it, and news publishers should take steps to ensure the data they gather, like during the registration process, is actionable.

Data alone is not enough, Kraviez said: 

“We need to transform users into people. This infinity of data that we’ve been collecting all these years, over these past eight years, the transformation of data into knowledge is a key step to our future.”

Internal teamwork will play a huge role in better connecting with and understanding users. Data scientists and journalists must work together. The industry is leaving behind old logic of more functional uses of data and trying to transform into a new logic which is more flexible and fast, Kraviez said.

How fast can we manage this information?

The industry determines who survives and who will be left behind, Kraviez said: “It’s not the bigger ones who will eat the smaller ones, the faster ones are going to eat up the smaller ones.”

Growing from 1 to 112,000 digital subscriptions

La Voz del Interior in is a 120-year-old publication. Sebastián Lazcano, commercial and marketing manager, said when it first launched its digital subscription strategy in 2018, it only accounted for a timid 3.8% of the company’s revenue mix.

What’s more, the team realised they were losing current subscribers as they added new ones. It became clear it was easier, and most cost-effective, to focus on retention.

Focusing more on the registration process, the team promoted price more clearly and introduced the value proposition at the beginning of the subscriber relationship. Managing this new dynamic meant creating and executing action plans, which Lazcano said required the right people on the team.

“We realised that we need to incorporate new people into organisation so they have they capacities and abilities to perform these roles,” Lazcano said.

New team structures, clear communication, and set responsibilities have helped the organisation power its digital transformation. Now, the team is focused on defining and growing the aspects of its offerings that differentiate it from competitors.

Cooking and education are two areas in which the brand can stand out, as well as a dedicated focus on growing corporate subscriptions.

Now, digital subscriptions account for 14% of the company’s revenue mix. Lazcano advised other companies looking to fast-track their digital transformation should learn to make decisions quickly and keep everyone on the staff involved in building the new ecosystem: “This is the most important thing, to generate ideas to troubleshoot.”

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