Our work with Il Sole 24 Ore began with our first engagement in July 2020 when Il Sole participated in a five-day immersive program designed to drive reader engagement and build a future-proof business strategy. In 2023, Il Sole 24 Ore decided to make significant investments to accelerate its digital transformation. FT Strategies was enlisted to help them achieve this objective and help re-orientate workflows and revenue from print-first to digital-first.
Our work together
Our engagement with Il Sole 24 Ore encompassed two workstreams, the first focused on the implementation of a dynamic paywall.
FT Strategies undertook the following activities:
- Conducting a diagnostic of Il Sole 24 Ore’s existing audience funnel by analysing analytics data.
- Assessing the current package offerings in terms of subscription length, trial offers and discounts.
- Delivering workshops featuring dynamic access model best practices and rule prioritisation.
- Sharing best practices from the FT and how the FT’s subscription team operates.
- Developing a list of recommended rules for use in a dynamic paywall.
- Providing metrics and KPIs that should be used to measure success.
- Modelling the revenue impact on advertising and subscription business resulting from any paywall change.
- Working with the paywall technology providers (Zephr and SubX) to ensure a smooth implementation of the new paywall.
The second workstream then focused on Il Sole 24 Ore’s newsroom organisation which included assessing the current structure, workflows, and technology, and considering options to become a platform-neutral and content-centric news publisher.
Key steps included:
- A capability gap analysis of People, Process, and Tech, through stakeholder interviews, org charts review, and article production data.
- Benchmarking the current state versus the FT, which has a similar audience profile to the client.
- Inspiration for potential alternative team structures and workflows based on our industry knowledge.
We have since extended our project work with Il Sole into a longer-term support model, during which we have collaborated on enhancements to the paywall, worked on retention tactics and churn reduction, and organised a number of inspiration sessions with FT experts on topics of interest and relevance to the client.
Results
Our work with Il Sole 24 Ore has helped the company go from concept to launching a dynamic paywall. In addition, our work together has provided Il Sole 24 Ore with several other benefits:
- A detailed view of roles and skills required in the organisation
- Upskilling and training staff members on the transition to digital-first production
- A suggested newsroom daily schedule, digital-to-print workflow and editorial meeting cadence/structure
- Tactical recommendations with respect to culture, commissioning and use of data, with a particular focus on improving meta-data tagging
- Knowledge and improved utilisation of search engines to maximise reach
We are also delighted that the Il Sole 24 Ore team has seen results from our support and has a deeper capacity to problem-solve using our methodologies and benchmarks.
“Working with the FT Strategies team has been a very insightful experience and improved our knowledge of the fast-changing digital transformation approach and relevant metrics.”
General Manager Publishing and Digital Area
FT Strategies has worked with Il Sole 24 Ore and many other publishers to transform their newsrooms. To find out more about how we can help you contact us here.
