As an alumni of the Table Stakes Europe programme, the German local newspaper Zeitungsverlag Neue Westfälische aimed to push further onwards with their transformation, focusing on their goal of being the indispensable digital media platform for the people of Ostwestfalen-Lippe and aiming high to reach 80,000 digital subscribers.
Based in Bielefeld, Zeitungsverlag Neue Westfälische covers Ostwestfalen-Lippe, a German region with 2 million people in 800,000 households. The region has a strong industrial base with global companies such as Bertelsmann, Dr. Oetker and Miele located there, as well as universities and leading healthcare institutions.
When NW joined Table Stakes again in 2024, they had formed mini-publishing teams in 2021 covering family, building and living, football and crime. The foodies team was added later. They had also grown their digital subscribers to 40,000 by the end of 2023 and were focused on improving their digital products, their newsletter strategy and attracting new audiences and advertising.
The key objective for 2024 was to fulfil the different needs of their audiences consistently and with efficient planning. In addition, they wanted to integrate AI into their workflows to increase media time and retain customers who are willing to pay.
“This not only helps us to better target our audiences but also encourages the continued production of appropriate content in all regions. In this way, we strengthen our relationship with our readers and increase the relevance of our content,” says Sandra Dalk, Chief Digital Officer at NW.
Optimising workflows to deepen audience focus
The alumni team hit the ground running, aiming to build on the successes of the previous TSE programme and further strengthen acceptance of the methodology within the wider team. In order to do this, they wanted answers to the following questions:
1. How could they change much faster to reach 80,000 digital subscribers?
2. How could they usefully integrate AI into their workflows?
3. How could they best manage the mini-publishing teams via 14 local editorial offices?
And they set themselves ambitious goals, namely looking to increase digital subscriptions to 47,000 by the end of 2024, increasing media time, decreasing underperforming content that typically has low readers and is aptly named the “ghost rate,” as well as putting user needs at the heart of their content strategy.
They worked hard on the workflows and reorganised the mini-publishing teams (MPTs). “These optimisations allowed us to improve the processes between the MPTs and the regional editorial teams to make collaboration more efficient and minimise existing coordination problems,” says Sandra Dalk.
They also introduced automated audience newsletters to ensure that sufficient audience-specific content was produced in each region. The newsletter was only sent when there was enough relevant content for the audience, thus enabling NW to target their audiences better.
New structure, tools and roles
To really integrate the Table Stakes methodology further into their editorial teams, NW restructured all of their newsroom processes to focus on the needs of their users.
“We focus on our audience as well as on specific user needs. To meet these needs, we have introduced new functional roles to help us implement this approach,” says Andrea Rolfes, Deputy Editor-in-Chief at NW.
This included:
- Restructuring the newsroom and centralising print production to become more efficient and better target resources. ➔ Increased the visibility of content in Google Discover, measured by a 4.7 percent increase in Discover clicks;
- Introducing new workflows and sprints. This resulted in faster implementation of new content and/or products. ➔ Team efficiency also improved with 80 percent of sprints taking place in a timely way, up from 50 percent;
- Introducing a topic planning tool with a user and audiences needs approach. ➔ By October, overall time spent on site had increased by 10 percent and all news conferences were centred on audiences needs;
- Introducing a quality manager to run breaking news stories. ➔ Reader satisfaction measured by surveys increased.
- Launching an automated newsletter for foodies. ➔ It exceeded its initial goal of 1,400 subscribers, reaching more than 1,800 users a week. The open rate is very good, at 47 percent, with the focus on continued growth in subscribers.
They also continue to increase their use of data-driven approaches to make editorial processes more efficient. “We are placing a high priority on the ongoing training of our employees to ensure the long-term success of this new way of working,” says Dalk.
AI-Buddy, the company-wide AI helper
Another step change this year was the introduction of AI-Buddy, which is a powerful tool that is used in all departments, including editorial. The tool connects different data and services, which in many cases makes employees’ work much easier.
It helps NW to:
- Generate topic ideas, analysis and monitoring;
- Plan content to meet the needs of our audiences;
- Save time. For example, by creating a WhatsApp post in five minutes instead of up to 30 minutes; and
- Create new prompts: improvement of at least five per month through working groups.
“The tool allows us to work more efficiently and increase productivity. To further optimise its use, we offer training so that all departments can take full advantage of AI-Buddy’s potential,” says Dalk.
NW’s AI-Buddy tool makes journalists’ workflows more efficient, as well as helping them generate story ideas and plan content to meet audiences’ needs. All departments can take advantage of the tool as it connects different data and services.
With all of this transformation, one of the keys to bringing staff along with them was communication. They held regular information events and targeted training courses to promote understanding, including talks between senior management and MPT managers.
One of the biggest challenges NW still faces is the coordination and workflow between the mini-publishing teams and the regional editorial teams.
“Different workflows, coordination problems, misunderstandings, and unclear lines of authority have often slowed down processes,” says Andrea Rolfes. “To address these challenges, we introduced the position of local manager, who will play a central role in administration and planning.”
Next goal: Improving agility
The transformation journey is continuous and only accelerates. For NW, they want to continue to optimise their processes “because we need to be faster in many areas.” They are already increasing the use of sprints in product development to make their work more focused and efficient.
The group has also benefited from high national advertising revenue, up 61 percent, through better positioning of advertising zones and new advertising formats. It will also implement strategic partnerships in 2025.
Looking ahead to their next challenge, work will continue to improve the subscription tool and they will further strengthen the audience approach and implementation of new projects.
“We will focus on diversifying our revenue streams to create new revenue opportunities. We will also further develop the use of artificial intelligence to better target content. In addition, we will continue to develop the skills of our employees to meet the changing needs of the media landscape,” says Sandra Dalk.