Management & project management, Marketing & audience, Editorial strategy, Tech & product

Expertise

Funding (subscription), human resources (recruitment, training, organization), communication, SEO

Dates

Since 2022

Arrêt sur images

Since 2022, Médianes has supported the independent media outlet Arrêt sur Images with its marketing strategy and organizational challenges.

The context

Support a media outlet in defining its marketing strategies.

Since 1995, Arrêt sur images has deconstructed media narratives through investigations and chronicles. Having entered a new era in autumn 2021, Arrêt sur images is now run by its team of employees. To support its transformation, the team called on Médianes to define and implement a marketing strategy suited to the values, practices, and human resources of their team.

We have been supporting the team on its marketing, development, and human resources challenges since January 2022. This support has comprised two phases: a period of marketing and organizational audit and recommendations in 2022, followed by a period of strategic and operational support on financial, marketing, and recruitment challenges.

Marketing strategy

Audit existing setup to define a tailored strategy

The first phase of our work with Arrêt sur images in 2022 involved studying the communication and marketing elements already in place within the organization. The goal was to provide a solid framework to support the teams' work and improve overall results. Médianes thus established a roadmap, conducted an audience study, and completed a comprehensive internal audit and review of public channels; this set of actions made it possible to identify marketing improvement levers to increase conversion of visitors to subscribers and retain subscribers, while respecting the specific editorial identity of Arrêt sur images.

To build a subscription-focused strategy, we launched an audience study to better understand public expectations and desires. A study that was featured in a column on ASI's site by the then editor-in-chief, Loris Guémart, making our report accessible.

Following our audit work and recommendations, we directed our efforts to strengthen the media's editorial identity and value proposition (revamp of the About page, etc.), create a newsletter (the "Aux petits oignons" newsletter), optimize the subscription and unsubscription journey, and develop video and interactive content (Twitch streams, Instagram content, etc.).

Define a marketing action plan

Alongside work on the business plan and hiring a dedicated marketing professional, we supported the team from January 2023 onwards in developing a strategic and operational marketing action plan.

Identifying target audiences based on identified personas (needs, interests, customer journeys), proposing optimizations to the offering (value proposition; editorial products), identifying growth drivers, defining campaign logic and scheduling, a roadmap to fulfill the editorial promise and objectives, proposing key performance indicators and monitoring tools, and setting targets…all actions and recommendations to be implemented in the short and long term.

In particular, we encouraged and shared recommendations on creating marketing email campaigns (welcome, loyalty, conversion, etc.), redesigning the subscription page, optimizing SEO and new user journeys, strengthening video and live content (FAQ and morning sessions on Twitch) in daily production, developing and professionalizing our Instagram presence, etc.

Help implement actions

The marketing plan aimed to provide a solid strategic foundation with broad communication and marketing guidelines; a concrete action plan with an analysis of objectives, a roadmap for the year, and a proposal for KPIs; drafted materials to make the recommendations decided between our teams immediately operational.

To support the rollout of the action plan, we assisted the team over several months through monthly workshops to ensure overall project progress, implementation of the action plan, training and transfer of our knowledge and expertise to the team, plus ongoing availability to support the team with their day-to-day challenges.

From summer to fall 2023, we supported the team in defining and implementing a new subscription campaign aimed at recruiting 1000 new subscribers. By October 18, the milestone of 1600 subscribers had been reached.

Business plan

Define a suitable business model

Working alongside Perrine Daubas, a consultant specializing in media financing challenges, we supported the team in early 2023 in defining their business model, with a focus on subscription strategy, to establish a solid and realistic foundation for developing marketing initiatives.

Taking control of the budget and initial business plan, proposing different scenarios (budget assumptions for increases and decreases over three years), defining initial subscription targets, recommending an organizational structure based on the business plan (years 1, 2, 3): the goal was to have an internal tool to plan the strategic development of Arrêt sur images in a structured way. A tool that made it possible to refine the recruitment of a person dedicated to marketing and communications questions.

Recruitment

Establish the foundations of a marketing hub

Independence is key to our support model. We are therefore particularly committed to sharing our expertise and knowledge, and training the teams we work with to be independent of our own organization. This is why we ensure that we thoroughly document our support throughout the mission (notes, templates, videos, etc.), and also develop our internal human resources so that they are able to take on our responsibilities long-term.

Alongside our work on the business plan and marketing plan, we therefore supported the Arrêt sur images team in opening a marketing and communications officer position. Definition of a job offer (profile, description, etc.), distribution of the offer and proactive search (sharing on social networks, recommendations, specialized channels), screening of applications and selection of profiles, definition of a practical test, participation in interviews (pre-interview and interview), definition of a tracking table to facilitate internal sharing of applications, and creation of shared resources to facilitate future recruitment.

The challenge here was to support Arrêt sur images in structuring its marketing department as well as developing a marketing plan to professionalize and rationalize the media's overall communication strategy as quickly as possible. This support remains ongoing to this day.