Consultancy firm FT Strategies and editorial data analytics company smartocto present User Needs Labs, a comprehensive training programme designed to accelerate audience growth.

Over the course of five months, participants will be expertly guided through their audience data, drawing actionable insights to optimise content strategy and create impactful content that resonates. This will be done based on the User Needs Model 2.0, which was launched by smartocto in collaboration with Dmitri Shishkin.

The programme is a continuation of an initiative that smartocto started six months ago with 10 media titles in Europe. "The demand for help remains high among journalistic media to help them better understand their website's data and to act on it," says Rutger Verhoeven, CMO and initiator of User Needs Labs. "We are happy to do that because we believe that journalism improves when stories better meet the needs of the audience. That also sustains the existence of publishers."

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FT Strategies is the subscriptions consultancy from the Financial Times. Grow recurring revenue and a loyal customer base, with digital transformation experts.

Smartocto is a smart content analytics system. It's built with and designed for newsrooms, storytellers, and other content creators.

Subscribe or find out more via the website of FT Strategies.

In the newsroom, so much is happening simultaneously. The user needs approach ensures a greater focus on your work, so that quality takes precedence. During the User Needs Labs project, it felt like a big relief to see that other media are experiencing the same problems. And that we can help each other to move forward when we use the same editorial language.

johanna_kakonen Photo credit Turun SanomatRiitta Salmi

Johanna Käkönen Digital Producer at Turun Sanomat (Finland)

Participants will also receive 1:1 consulting sessions and assistance in implementing the user needs approach, adopted by leading media brands including BBC, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Reach, Vogue, and many more.

This ambitious programme is tailored for all individuals involved in news content, from editor-in-chief to head of digital, innovation, and strategy, as well as audience engagement managers, data strategists, and business analysts.

Subscribe or find out more via the website of FT Strategies.

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