the strategic power of baseline reports

If data informs your editorial decisions, the central question should always be: what works and what doesn’t? But there’s an even more fundamental one to answer first. What does success actually mean?

That definition must reflect your newsroom’s mission. Perhaps you aim to offer your audience deeper context on the news. Or maybe you want to spark emotion. Or help people make everyday decisions. Whichever it is, the only way to measure impact is to look at what readers consume and how they engage with it.

Thanks to a blend of research and artificial intelligence, smartocto is now able to analyse vast volumes of content based on exactly this: editorial intent. That opens up something new and important. For the first time, we can pinpoint where a newsroom’s real strengths lie. In the User Needs Labs programme, twenty media brands used this analysis as a foundation for what we like to call ‘growth hacks’ – small, strategic experiments that can lead to major insights.

And that, in a nutshell, is the role of a baseline report. It shows you where you are before you try to move forward. It gives your experiment the best possible start.

From this position of clarity, newsrooms can begin to identify which content types strike a chord and which fail to land. The goal is not to chase performance for its own sake but to reinforce editorial strength. In that light, it is a powerful form of self-assessment.

What is a baseline report built on user needs?

More and more media organisations now request a baseline report when they want to take user needs seriously. As Amalie Nash noted in her newsletter for INMA, the user needs model is gaining traction around the globe - and whether the newsroom is based in Amsterdam or Kuala Lumpur, the method has become a common language.

These reports are built on a minimum of one thousand articles, and the results reveal whether your editorial goals are being met. If your organisation is not yet tagging stories by user need, artificial intelligence can be used to retrospectively categorise historic content. That, too, is a useful reality check.

Take Der Spiegel, for example. A well-known and respected title in Germany, Der Spiegel produced a report that offered a revealing picture of its editorial output.

More than 80 percent of its content serves what we call contextual needs. In practice, this means the majority of articles are designed to either offer perspective (with input from analysts and experts) or to educate (by breaking down complex issues).

This largely reflects Der Spiegel’s brand promise. Still, the editorial team saw room for improvement.

Audience data revealed something interesting. Readers also valued other user needs – and that, too, is part of Der Spiegel’s identity. Their mission, after all, is not just to explain the news but to set the agenda.

So what does that suggest? In our view, a more balanced mix of user needs. More fact-driven content, particularly before the paywall, could help draw in new audiences. That, in turn, supports subscription growth. And that is no minor point. It sits right at the heart of the strategy.

Simon Schwandner, Head of Data and Research at Der Spiegel, explained it this way:

"We do see that the action driven articles work well for newer audiences. Fact-driven is kind of our main category, but less powerful, especially for these newer audiences."

It is also important to note that article reads are not the only metric that matters. A baseline report becomes much more revealing when you examine things like attention time and page depth.

Where possible, we also look at output across different sections of a website. That is when real patterns start to emerge. You quickly see which user needs are being ignored in which places.

A simple and effective action might be to create more action-driven content in the sports section. Think of articles that tell readers when and where to watch football matches. Or pieces that encourage people to connect around shared experiences and passions in sport.

Ultimately, the success of this approach depends on one thing above all: a solid commitment to the entire growth hack process, from start to finish.

1. Formulate strong growth hacks.
2. Commit to experimenting for at least three months.
3. Follow what happens, closely and consistently. Visitor behaviour will show you what works.

Below, for inspiration, are a few examples of growth hacks that have delivered results.