“Our ambition for the next few years is to increase the number of digital subscribers, so we decided to search for new audiences,” said Clémence Lemaistre, Les Echos’ digital editor-in-chief during WAN-IFRA’s Virtual World News Media Congress.

“How could we reach them? How could we serve them? And how can we find out what their needs are?” she said.

Les Echos has taken part in Table Stakes Europe, a programme conceived primarily for local and regional news organisations to help drive digital revenue growth by re-focusing on audiences.
Identifying priority audiences
Keeping in mind its characteristics and offer, Les Echos, which attracts about 24 million visits per month, determined which audiences they should target, such as women and young executives, players in the start-up ecosystem or expatriates.

In order to identify priority segments, Les Echos looked at them through eight criteria:

Subscription potential
Advertising potential
Brand equity potential
Differentiation
Size of audience
Editorial expertise
Desire to serve the target
Clearly identified early wins

“It’s very important to look at the editorial expertise,” Lemaistre said. “Do you have journalists in the newsroom who can work on stories that are interesting for this audience? Also, is there a desire to serve that target group? If no one in the newsroom wants to do these articles, don’t go for it.”
Setting goals from the start
One audience segment Les Echos identified as v…