Measuring isn't enough
Hello, everyone,
This is Baptiste Thevelein, co-founder and project director at Médianes. I’m very happy to be back with you for this second edition of the studio’s newsletter.
It’s also a pleasure to welcome Maxime Leroy to the team starting today. Maxime will be writing a monthly column focusing on audience-related issues. After covering this topic at The New York Times, CNN, and Meetup, he is now an entrepreneur and consultant for Le Monde. His first column addresses the need for media outlets to take back control of their audiences.
A quick practical exercise: 91% of recipients opened the first issue of this newsletter exactly one month ago. That’s an incredible result. But what does it actually mean, and what does it really signify?
Newsletters are often dominated by these numbers. Indeed, email is an older technology with little room for improvement, and tracking statistics is necessarily less robust than on a website or app. That’s what I told participants at the “Crash-Test Your Newsletter” workshop held a few weeks ago in Nantes during the Local News Festival.
These staggering figures are called “vanity metrics”: they’re impressive, but they don’t help us understand performance or build a strategy for the future.
If you don’t need this data, why collect it? By choosing useful and accurate metrics, you save time and enhance your audience’s experience—both online and in print.
Accurate and useful: that’s the goal of this newsletter. Please feel free to reply directly to this email after reading it—your feedback helps us improve.
Enjoy the read!
— Baptiste, Marine, and Christelle.
MAXIME LEROY'S COLUMN
For a short audience loop
Faced with the power of these platforms, many media outlets have lost control over their audiences. Newsrooms, product teams, and editorial teams—what if we took back control?
When we measure and compare the audience of French media outlets in absolute terms—whether in terms of traffic or subscribers—it’s easy for us collectively to lose sight of a more important editorial and economic goal: building a loyal readership. While it is possible to measure reader loyalty using retention metrics—similar to those used in SaaS (subscription-based) businesses—another indicator reveals an obstacle that stands in the way of this goal: the source of visitor traffic.
Web traffic to online news sites can be divided into three main categories…
Maxime Leroy is an entrepreneur and expert in audience and community development. He is a consultant for Le Monde and a columnist for [publication]Médianes, having previously led numerous multidisciplinary teams for The New York Times, CNN, and Meetup.
From the media's perspective
LUKE WINKIE | NIEMAN LAB & MEDIANES (IN FRENCH)
Why are the media getting (back) into gaming?
We are now translating articles published abroad that might interest you. Some subscribers would rather play games than sift through the news. Can we really blame them?
MARINE SLAVITCH | MEDIANES
Give the Right Answer
What if, instead of automatically turning to Google, the media became the go-to source for certain topics? An article excerpted from our bimonthly newsletter, featuring examples from Helpdesk, 60 Millions de Consommateurs, and La langue française.
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⟶ StreetPress Launches a Campaign
We are working with the StreetPress team to set up and manage a year-end fundraising campaign to raise 80,000 euros and solidify its pay-what-you-want media business model.
⟶ Job openings throughout the month
On medianes.org and in our bimonthly newsletter, we have compiled a list of current job openings in the media.
⟶ Marine Doux at Mediarama
Marine Doux, co-founder of Médianes, is the guest on the latest episode of Mediarama, the media podcast from the CosaVostra agency. It’s a chance to look back at the media news from October.
⟶ What business models for 2023?
On November 25 in Paris, Baptiste Thevelein, co-founder of Médianes, will share our insights as part of Independent Press Day.
⟶ Mediabask Surveys Its Readership
We are partnering with Mediabask, which aims to gain a better understanding of its readers in the Basque Country and beyond, and we have launched an audience study in collaboration with them.
⟶ Basta! Celebrates Socially Conscious Journalism
We are working with the Basta! team to develop *Chez les Indés*, a weekly press digest that brings together 138 independent and socially conscious media outlets in the form of a newsletter.
A project? An idea?
Marketing, strategy, creative design: Do you have a project? An idea? Take a look at our support services and get in touch! In the meantime, check your inboxes on November 25.
Médianes, the studio
This newsletter was prepared by Baptiste Thevelein and Marine Doux, with the assistance of Pauline Butel, Juliette Cahen, and Christelle Perrin.
