The generalist times in the media are over. Differentiation is the name of the game; “riches in niches” is the often-used motto. Digital success comes to those operating between the axes of quality and focus — if you don’t, you are either not distinctive enough or are not producing the best content in your chosen niche. Hence the audience goes somewhere else. Time to specialize, and fast. (Meanwhile, try to get your C-level team to answer the question “What will change in your audience’s lives if your media were to disappear tomorrow?”)

Newsrooms have been experimenting with user needs-centric content strategies from as early as 2016 (BBC and Buzzfeed). In 2023, user needs models were declared a prominent trend in the publishing sector by the Reuters Institute for Study of Journalism. You can read more on the best use cases on the subject here, here, and here.

Existing news models are known for their diversity, although the four key axes of new consumption will remain the same — audiences mainly want to A) know, B) understand, C) feel, and D) do something.

The travel content model has existed — you’ve got your inspirational, orientational, and booking needs, connected with relevant parts of the funnel. The food content model is being tested (watch this space!). Sports and entertainment content models are not dissimilar to the news one, but have some specific characteristics to them.

What about retail media? What about B2B publishers? What about other niches? All of those models are yet to be fully defined and optimized, and once it’s done, we will be able to be much more helpful to people who interact with information we provide them. “Above everything, be helpful” — this ageless maxim is as relevant to people’s behavior, as it is to newsrooms’.

A plethora of specific user needs have been identified to date — from “make me feel nostalgic” and “show me how your investigation works” to “introduce authors at the top of their game” to “take me behind the scenes.” Once you start analyzing your output not only via lenses of formats and topics, but also via user needs, you’ll be much more effective in your work.

An experiment that turned into a trend will be strengthened further by all AI has to offer. Six years — from experiments we conducted at the BBC to a wide acceptance that this is an effective way forward — now will be taken much further and much faster with machine learning algorithms presenting themselves as our automated, editorial helpers.

Ignore them at your peril. You might not always agree with their suggestions, fine, but ignoring them altogether will not be smart.

Imagine you are coming to your morning meeting and your Slack is already offering you automated notifications from your editorial analytics suggesting possible treatments of stories that you are about to discuss. All the heavy lifting has been done for you — your task is to make a call — while all the advice, insights, and tips will be there. User needs models will further align your organization as everyone will be able to use the model — editorial, product, sales, data disciplines.

“If you are thinking of taking this business story forward today, a ‘give me perspective’ user need presented as a first-person video could be the best way forward.” Or “This topic doesn’t generally do well for you, but if you deliver it via an ‘educate me’ user need in a listicle format, it can work well both for your site and your social media channels.” I would love to have had something like that, if I were an active editor today. More examples are here.

If you want to play with your own stories and automatically identify user needs, use this new tool — imagine how quickly it will further develop and improve.

Ultimately, your audience “why” and your newsroom “why” have to be the same. User-need strategies finally connect newsrooms output with its mission statements, providing so much needed distinctiveness, which I started this entry with.

News avoidance is our audiences’ reaction to our inability to be helpful to them, to find a reason for them to come back over and over again. After all, no one is questioning why they pay for Spotify, Amazon Prime, or Netflix. They do for news, though. However, once you start addressing your audiences’ user needs creatively, strategically and consistently, growth (reach, engagement and conversion) will come.