As Brazil’s leading independent business and financial newspaper, Valor Econômico enjoys a loyal following, much of which comprises businessmen and traders. However, in 2020, the company determined it needed to widen its audience, which led to the creation of its growth desk.

During this week’s members-only Webinar, Catherine Vieira, executive editor, and Diogo Max, journalist for SEO and growth, explained how that project came about and how it has transformed operations.

Although Valor Econômico enjoyed a solid audience base, Vieira said it was time to diversify its audience: “We needed to go after other kinds of readers, younger readers,” she said.

That included moving to a digital-first mindset, which changed how journalists approached stories. The staff of 155 journalists were accustomed to “going deep” on the subjects they covered, and it was challenging to explain they needed to become more agile, Vieira said.

The solution was to create a growth desk that accelerated the training of its journalists to have a greater digital focus. The desk has a fixed core staff as well as rotating journalists from other desks in the newsroom who join the growth team for three months.

During that time, they receive training that they can apply to their daily work when they return to their regular desk.

A day at the desk

The desk writes stories about topics ranking high in search that day. Following this new approach has been pivotal to the organisation’s transformation, Max said.

Each day at the growth desk begins with an early morning meeting where the team discusses the day’s top stories. This meeting is crucial as it helps the team understand what users want to know about specific topics, primarily using Google Trends.

This tool, which is free and highly effective, guides the team in making informed decisions about their coverage.

During these meetings, each journalist is assigned at least one story to cover. The team dives deep into trending topics within their coverage areas, analysing and deciding how to address them.

“This is a very important moment ... because this task was not just to chase trending stories. That is not what we do here,” Max said. “We want to provide a story that could be useful and helpful to our audience.”

On Fridays, the entire team meets for an hour to discuss what went well during the week and what could be improved. This continuous feedback loop is essential for refining strategies and enhancing the quality of their content.

The goal of the growth desk is to be the first — at least in Brazil — to fill information gaps. For example, during the floods in southern Brazil in May, people were searching for information about the affected areas.

“The most important thing that growth desk did here … was to locate what users wanted,” Max said.

By studying the initial search results, the desk could see that people were trying to determine which cities were affected by the flood. The growth desk responded by providing detailed explainers, interactive maps, and lists of affected cities.

These stories garnered about 1 million pageviews, a significant achievement by their standards.

Improved engagement

The growth desk’s impact is evident in its higher engagement rates. Articles from the growth desk attract 62% more page views than other articles from Valor Econômico. At the moment, only 3% of the total published articles come from the growth desk, yet those articles account for 22% of the total audience.

The growth desk has been a key player in initiating a digital culture within Valor Econômico, helping the company transition from a print-focused environment to a digitally savvy newsroom.

“The growth desk is part of a broader strategy, but it started this culture here and we are now seeing a lot of journalists [on other desks] trying to do explainers. They suggest they want to know how to do it, but they don't know how to make it really work,” Max said.

“Often those explainers don’t have the same results as the ones that the growth desk does.”

Now, Max said, the goal is to keep climbing and build on its success.

“Growth desk has a lot of challenges ahead,” he said, adding one big question is how to scale it in the newsroom to produce similar high-quality content. That means providing more training and expanding the current programme, but the company is still looking for the best way to do that.  

“Keep in mind that we are a very relevant newspaper, a very respected newspaper,” he said. “We’re not going to cover every subject and we’re not going to do anything to just attract any kind of audience. So that’s also challenging for growth.”

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