In addition to a recent ghost article analysis, DRIVE publishers — launched in 2020 by German press agency dpa and consultancy firm Highbergand now including 30 publishers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland — worked with Dmitry Shishkin, CEO of Ringier Media and a former BBC journalist, on implementing the user needs framework. 

The hypothesis: Relevance is a key success factor in digital journalism. Content that specifically addresses readers’ interests and expectations has been shown to increase their willingness to pay.

The problem: The majority of stories published do not meet this requirement, according to data on user behaviour on regional Web sites.

Among DRIVE publishers in the initial analysis:

• 90% of paid content articles did not generate a single digital subscription.

• 80% of published articles were read by too few readers or not read at all.

• 5% of published articles accounted for 50% of total reading time.

“User needs require various adaptations, like you need additional time to plan for articles,” Fehling said. “We developed a whole concept for newsroom change to support the work around user needs.”

The first content analysis, based on more than 5 million archived pieces of content, showed which categories of needs DRIVE publishers have addressed and which have achieved high engagement and conversion rates. 

An overview of the key findings:

• Mismatch between supply and demand: Regional publishers largely offer traditional news on their sites. However, the data shows readers don’t demand this level of coverage.

• Engagement drivers: Emotional and inspiring stories generate the highest user engagement, but these are rarely found on regional sites.

• Conversion stars: Visitors to regional sites are more likely than average to read inspiring and opinionated articles before subscribing to a digital subscription.

“We see that more and more publishers understand the need to focus on audience and softer topics,” Fehling said. “We have publishers who are showing how a digital newsroom should work.”

Not surprisingly, “inspire me” stories over-perform in terms of engaged time and conversions, Fehling said. Interestingly, an analysis of crime coverage showed it performed well in the “divert me” category — but perhaps that’s not surprising when you consider the interest in true-crime podcasts among the audiences of these publishers, Fehling said.

Also, the DRIVE initiative was able to analyse user needs by date and time. What they found, for instance, was that readers on Mondays are looking for “divert me” articles.

“If you search on Friday afternoon, you may be looking for ‘help me’ articles on what to do this weekend,” Fehling said. “We find people are looking for more lengthy articles and ‘give me perspective’ at specific times.”

The results:

• News publishers have gained an average of 75% more subscribers with needs-based stories than with traditional articles.

• Reader engagement has more than doubled, increasing by 125%.

And recommendations for implementing the model:

• Acceptance in the newsroom is higher when the newsroom itself decides on adaptations.

• The introduction of user needs models has shown that intensive support of editorial teams by a training team has a maximum learning effect.

• Each story needs to be assigned a needs category in the content management system. 

• User needs models are particularly useful for building up ongoing coverage of a topic. Instead of writing one comprehensive article covering all facets, it is a good idea to produce and publish several articles that correspond to the respective user needs categories. 

• Broadcasting and production schedules based on user needs are an important part of the editorial change process. 

If you’d like to subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter, INMA members can do so here.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .