Build a canvas

A practical guide to creating a framework tailored to your personas, which you can use to develop your editorial and value propositions and craft effective communication and marketing strategies tailored to your audiences.

1. The outline: What are we talking about?

A framework is a strategic and comparative marketing tool that links the target audience (its needs, habits, and financial resources) to the proposed editorial product and its value proposition.

Concretely, the canvas is a modeling of your media's editorial and economic model. It's these different elements and the various connections woven between them, this overall view that will subsequently enable you to adapt your editorial project, value proposition, and formats and channels more closely to your targets and your media's ecosystem. You could see the canvas as a tool for testing and aligning your project with its targets.

2. Why create a framework?

The canvas is the strategic counterpart to the persona and allows you to address your media project's target audience from both a strategic and practical angle. The idea is to build on the persona established previously, but by focusing more on identifying the needs and problems your target audience faces and that your project aims to solve.

This focal length allows you to adjust, if needed:

• Your editorial proposal: to make it more relevant to the needs and challenges faced by your core audience;
• Your formats, media, and distribution channels: to tailor them to your target audience’s habits and sensibilities;
• Your distribution strategies from both a marketing and technical perspective: to incorporate not only your target audience’s habits but also the acquisition and conversion channels that resonate with them.

Furthermore, the framework allows you to put your editorial and value proposition into perspective by observing the media ecosystem and repositioning your project within it. This involves notably observing media that use the same formats or address the same themes. This makes it possible to identify potential competitors and partners, to draw inspiration, but also and above all to develop a project and concept that is original and stands out from the others, offering a unique response and solution to very specific audiences.

3. Create your storyboard

Step 1 — Be clear about the foundation of your project

This is a testing and adjustment phase for your project. You therefore need to have worked beforehand on:

• Your media's vision, the problem you're addressing, and what makes your project essential;
• Your project's target audience, your personas;
• Your editorial proposal, its direction, its format.

Step 2 — Focus on your target audience’s needs to develop appropriate editorial content

Think about what your target audience will be looking for—and therefore what you can offer them (in terms of both content and format)—and how you’ll deliver it (a newsletter, a short podcast, long-form articles online or in print, YouTube videos, free content, paid subscriptions, etc.*).*

In short: what relevant form and content will you offer her to nourish her intellectually, meet her desires, and address her personal or professional information needs?

• Which editorial product meets your target audience's needs?
• What medium/format is best suited to your audience's needs and usage?
• Why is this medium/format the best suited?

Step 3 — Link the solutions provided by your project to the problems faced by your target audiences

To put your ideas in perspective and stay grounded, ask yourself three questions that will help you connect your project to your audience's needs.

• What editorial product are you offering (target audience, content, format)?
• What concrete solution does it provide to your audiences?
• What benefit will your audiences gain?

Step 4 — Think about the strategies you can use to attract and retain these audiences

Defining your customer acquisition and retention methods will help you establish the foundation of your marketing strategy. How will your personas discover your project? How will you reach them in their user journey? Are these levers organic or sponsored actions? List all your ideas. One way to identify them is also to observe your competition (see the next point).

You might also ask:

• What methods will you use to reach your target audience (distribution channels, ways to engage the public)?
• Where is this target currently spending their time? Whether online or offline.

Step 5 — Analyze the competitive landscape, including direct and indirect competitors

Conduct market research and find out about other media/services that focus on the same topics, the same platforms, and use the same strategies as you do.

Is there really no one else working on this topic in this format? Either a project is about to launch, there’s no market for it, or you’ve truly got the project of the century on your hands. In any case, your project will exist in a competitive landscape. The time people spend on Netflix, Spotify, or other media covering different topics already defines your competitive landscape.

Ask yourself:

• Who is currently offering a service similar to the one you want to provide to your target audience?
• Which media outlets, public figures, or products cover the same topics as you?

Step 6 — Lay the Groundwork for Your Business Model

Assess the direct and indirect costs and revenue streams of your project. The business model must be consistent with your editorial vision and your target audience. Indeed, the cost of your media outlet must align with the financial resources and values of your target audience.

Take some time to think about:

• Your revenue: What revenue does this project generate? Whether the monetization is direct or indirect. How do you plan to monetize this project?
• Your costs: What costs does this project generate? Whether they are fixed or variable costs.

Step 7 — Evaluate the consistency of your project

Assess the relevance of your editorial proposal to your core target audience. Adjust it if necessary.

Our advice: Consistency is key. Be as precise and thorough as possible when creating this framework. The more thorough you are, the more valuable the strategic and marketing insights you’ll gain from aligning your targets with your editorial project.

4. Our Educational Resource

The Médianes team has prepared a handy document to help you apply the lessons from this fact sheet to your own project.

5. Learn More

• On identifying and understanding your audiences: check out our practical guide on personas.
• About your project’s identity: Check out our guide on value propositions, as well as editorial and visual guidelines.