News UK Headquarters opposite The Shard
The Digital Landscape
News UK Director of Digital George Mudie enlightened the Empower delegates with a penetrating and thorough overview of how the newspaper market is interacting across multiple platforms. It is clear that digital evolution within newspapers has seen has been rapid and News UK has adopted a clear strategy to achieve positive revenue streams across Times, Sunday Times and The Sun brands.
“Facebook is responsible for an additional 50% of traffic to the majority of Newspaper sites”A key learning was the importance of Social Media. News UK has a “mobile first” strategy and George was emphatic that Newspapers need to adapt to the expanding groups across the social media sphere.
George also commented that video is now the highest impact content across News UK brands and that demand can at items exceed capacity to supply.
The Week – A Print & Digital Strategy
Abi Spooner – Direct Marketing Director The Week appraised the delegates on a cohesive 6 point strategy to optimise print, digital and bundle revenue streams.
The Week an intelligent & independent view
Abi revealed a healthy print sale for The Week complimented by a generous increase Y.O.Y. in bundle subscription sales. Interestingly digital only subscriptions have slowed although more than addressed by the increase in bundle sales. This clearly suggests that print is in a far from poor position and the value to the bottom line of bundle sales is significant.
Managing the Digital Supply Chain
Laura Summers is the Head of Marketing at YUDU Media. In a compelling view from the leading digital publishing provider she identified new approaches and opportunities in the digital supply chain.
Laura outlined the successful Time Out digital/print strategy
Laura noted that digital magazine revenue will not replace print revenue falls over the next 3-5 years. She endorsed the multi platform approach highlighted by today’s speakers commenting that a recent IPSOS survey had shown that 40% of people rely on Social Media for their news feed
Putting the plan into context
Module facilitator and Managing Director of Wessenden Marketing highlighted the 7 Media Mega Trends. He identified that publishers are constantly changing their digital journey.
How digital integrates with print
There have been 3 patterns of change from publishers reacting to the consumer demanding that they have everything, everywhere, any time, all the time. Print remains a strong contributor and previously projected declines have not generally been realised which is encouraging for those involved so closely with its success.