the 8 universal truths for content

Over the past five years we’ve produced more than 150 baseline reports for clients, including many created as part of our Labs series with FT Strategies & Dmitry Shishkin on the user needs model 2.0.

These reports analyse more than 5000 articles from your site, show what’s working, what isn’t, and then - crucially - suggest improvements, growth hacks, alternative editorial strategies and shifts to make your newsroom more effective and more audience-centric.

More than insights - it’s potential, ready to unlock

We’ve made these reports for newsrooms and publishers of all kinds, for all markets and of all sizes. Each report is as unique as its newsroom.

But even allowing for this variety, we have found that there are eight things we see time and time again. These are universal truths that are widely accepted even though they’re less than ideal.

So what would happen if a newsroom actually did something about them? What would happen if you bucked the trend and addressed the shortcomings, missed opportunities or underperformances that these universal truths reveal?

You’d get out ahead of the pack, is what. You’d be the ones making the changes no one else is. Seizing the opportunity that’s there in plain sight, waiting to be grasped.

The Universal Truths series

This series of mini-masterclasses will address those eight findings - and we’ll be publishing one every two weeks or so in the run up to the launch of Labs 4.0 in October

These findings are universal, but imagine what you could do with information that’s specifically insightful about your newsroom, based on your performance and your goals? A baseline report* will set you in the right direction - and if you're after more in-depth training, that’s what you get by participating in Labs.

The universal truths:

(we'll reveal these between now and mid September - make sure you check back for these insights)

*you’ll get even more out of this process with your own baseline report. Find out about that here