Key questions which owners of online news properties have to assess regularly include:
- Where do my news websites stand in the overall news website marketplace from a feature implementation perspective?
- What are the points of inefficiencies in the present online newsroom publishing process which need attention and improvements?
- What were the best customer facing web features and innovative web implementations done by news websites with most market-share in the online space?
- How do I leverage existing content from all non-web properties successfully to increase online revenues?
- Which features/ applications/vendor partnerships should I build/develop to increase stickiness and traffic to my news websites?
- How do I create a distinct identity/unique positioning for my news websites to influence target customers/advertisers?
- What are the latest/differentiated business models my competition is getting into to make web revenues a larger chunk of the overall company revenue pie?
To help answer these questions and optimize revenue, Axtria has developed its proprietary NewsREV Framework for online news properties of media companies. The newspaper industry is rapidly witnessing a steady loss of readership and revenues to its online counterpart and is looking at successfully monetizing its premier content online. Broadcasters have also started to realize how online ads can become a major revenue and ad generating pie in the years to come. The NewsREV framework has been generated keeping in mind the needs of both these groups to assess and evaluate their present end-to-end online publishing process and benchmark their news websites against the top features and successful practices of the top revenue generating players in the news marketspace.
Objectives of NewsREV Framework Analysis
- To understand the overall online news publishing environment for the company in terms of business strategy, technology implementation, web features, partnering vendors and overall ROI objectives
- To benchmark various web features implemented by the client with best in class implementations across the competitive news website landscape and identify gaps/inefficiencies in the entire publishing value chain from content aggregation, editing and production, content management, web presentation and final delivery and monetization
- To provide specific recommendations both in terms of feature and product implementations (features/applications which need to be enhanced/modified) and provide a detailed roadmap to maximize returns both in terms of enhanced revenues and increased web traffic to match the best in the news marketplace
Axtria’s Approach for NewsREV Framework Analysis
Axtria has created a robust model of tools and processes to carry out the three stages of NewsREV Analysis. A set of proprietary templates and questionnaires are used throughout the engagement. The broad intent is to leverage a structured framework to benchmark and provide specific inputs to maximize returns from news websites. Tools are customized to specific client segments (large/midsize/small - newspaper/broadcaster) which incorporate qualitative and quantitative inputs from their competitive landscape.
The approach can be described as below: -
- Review – Understanding and defining the present web implementation strategy adopted by clients’ news websites through detailed questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The objective is to mirror the present online news publishing workflow process.
- Evaluation – Benchmarking a client’s present online news publishing process to the best news websites through a feature-implementation comparison. The Benchmark tool would provide a quantitative Gap Analysis on various features along with qualitative inputs like SWOT analysis and overall positioning of the client’s online implementation compared to the best in industry.
- Value Generation – Present recommendations along with detailed execution roadmap to help clients gain maximum success online
The deliverables for each stage include:
- Review Stage Deliverables-
- Detailed business flow documentation on current online news publishing environment
- In depth understanding of architecture, tools, people and processes presently in place
- Key Quantitative data about the overall performance metrics
- Evaluation Stage Deliverables-
- Benchmark Report comparing as-is state to the best in the industry
- Assessment Chart for SWOT/Gap Analysis
- Overall Positioning Map of client’s online feature implementation in comparison with top competition
- Value Generation Stage Deliverables-
- Implementation Areas Report on critical/strategic feature implementations for to-be state
- Roadmap\Execution Plan for value and measurable impact to be accrued through engagement
- Risk Versus Benefits Plan Report for all new implementations
Benefits of Axtria’s NewsREV Framework
Through NewsREV, Axtria offers a one-of its kind online news publishing assessment to help clients position/benchmark against top features and implementations in the news website marketplace through its feature comparison tools. Specific benefits include:-
- Understanding key strategies/ implementations of successful news websites: Helps gain access to top best practices and benefits from an independent comparison with competitors
- Assessing effectiveness of present online news publishing process: Ability to assess points of improvements and new feature implementations needed for its web publishing process
- Implementing specific recommendations to realize enhanced revenues/traffic through the engagement: Provides a robust execution roadmap with targeted final deliverables