Digital Immersion Foundation

Activate and accelerate your journey towards sustainable digital reader revenue.

Supported by the Google News Initiative, the Digital Immersion Programme is a
five day interactive virtual workshop for key decision makers designed to
accelerate a publisher’s journey towards digital reader revenue.

By fusing strategic thinking with tactical action, participants will leave with a
series of quick wins that can be implemented immediately, and an actionable
framework for sustained growth.

The programme is designed for publishers at the beginning of their digital reader revenue journey. It’s aimed at organisations looking for rapid and actionable solutions to help in their transition to digital reader revenue. This includes:

• Local and hyper-local publishers.
• Publishers with a content website, not only an e-edition of the publication.
• Publishers who are yet to offer digital subscriptions/memberships or at a very early stage of that process.
• Typical headcount (newsroom + operations): 9-50.
• Typical online monthly unique visitors: <250,000.

Publishers will leave with:

• An actionable plan to tackle a key reader revenue or engagement challenge
• Key next steps with milestones, outcomes & owners
• Practical experience on how to apply the North Star tool
• 1on1 consulting
• Exclusive in-depth insights and feedback from FT experts across data, editorial and marketing

Who is the programme for?
The Digital Immersion Programme is designed for publishers at the beginning of their reader revenue journey. It’s aimed at organisations looking for rapid and actionable solutions to help in their transition to digital reader revenue.

What stage of the reader revenue journey should publishers be at? Are we still eligible for the programme if we have a reader revenue model in place?
Publishers might have taken the first steps towards driving value from digital readers, including subscriptions, donations or memberships. These should not be fully developed though; the goal of the Digital Immersion Programme will be to optimise elements of their reader experience to activate or accelerate the journey to sustainable reader revenue.

If you already have a reader revenue model in place, that’s great! Depending on what stage of the journey you’re at, you may still be eligible for the programme.

Can publishers outside of the UK apply?
Yes! We actively encourage applications from news organisations across Europe, TH, providing they can speak the programme language.

How much work is involved?
So that you can get the most value out of the programme, we will provide you with a selection of pre-reading materials. These will offer a short introduction to reader revenue models, making the most of data and analytics, and sketch out global changes and trends in the digital news landscape. We highly recommend working your way through this (short) list so that you can hit the ground running and extract the most value from our expert-led workshops.

What does the application process look like?
After submitting an application form we’ll be in contact over the next few weeks to confirm your place. If we think you’re slightly too advanced or nascent for the programme, we’ll recommend resources and next steps for you to take.

Which employees should attend the Digital Immersion Programme? Can multiple people from our organisation attend?
Bearing in mind the topics covered, we recommend that you send a mid or senior level decision maker who works within the most relevant areas, and who has a good knowledge of / is responsible for audience engagement and (reader) revenue growth. The participant might be within the data, digital, marketing, strategy or technology departments.

For each programme there can be a maximum of 12 publishers, with up to two participants from each publisher. For the morning webinar sessions, we invite participants to invite as many relevant people in their organisation as they like (up to a maximum of 20) to help share and embed the knowledge.

What sort of time commitment will be required each day?
The daily time commitment is around 5 hours of content and activities.