Expand Your Media Mix to Meet Users Where They Are

Editor’s note: This piece is part of our Columnist Network series, which explores the tactical thoughts and actions from Adweek’s community of high-level experts. Today, Quartz’s Natalie Diamond discusses the ever-evolving publisher-to-consumer relationship. Below, in her own words, she taps into the ways data insights can sustain engagement and product development. The challenge As the media landscape continues to evolve, so do the dynamics of the publisher-to-consumer relationship. With global online content consumption having doubled in 2020, we know that consumers today are spoiled for choice regarding how and where they consume content. It’s not enough anymore to capture infrequent audience traffic; brands want consumers’ loyalty as well, which is why it’s important for brands to continue to innovate and explore different ways to deepen relationships with their users. But with so many platforms at our fingertips, how do you know what is right for your brand and what will have the greatest impact for your business? Where do you start with this exploration process? The process At Quartz, we continue to come back to our audience and stay in touch with their preferences when it comes to content consumption habits and behaviors. The root of many insights come from data; to learn what resonates most with our audience, we’ve surveyed their preferences on media consumption. This has led to findings about new products we could offer—for example, we found a majority of our readers stated they currently listen to podcasts and would be interested in one from Quartz. This highlighted a huge opportunity to create a new product offering and bring our content to users where they are already consuming other types of content. From there, it was important to focus on what would be both distinctive and authentic to our brand that would not only resonate with existing audiences but also help grow our audience. To achieve this, we dove deeper into the data, where we found the top reasons respondents think Quartz is different: our writing style and our unique perspective. These elements together helped us develop a product that showcased our lens for covering business trends that change the way we live and work. Exploring new ways of engaging with your audience doesn’t always need to rely on launching new products or breaking ground on entirely new platforms. Upgrading existing products in new formats can also be a great way to develop deeper levels of engagement. These types of strategic pivots to existing products could work out to be less costly and less risky, as it’s often more of a shift in existing workflows or resources. For example, we recently decided to refocus our membership strategy on a newsletter-first approach. This pivot came directly from our members, as we received firsthand feedback that they’d like another method to view our content. We used this feedback—combined with data from another recent survey that indicated most of our members were discovering Quartz content most frequently from their inbox—to pivot our existing offerings to meet their needs. Hearing directly from our most loyal readers helped us amend our product experience to meet them where they are. The takeaway You can’t remain stagnant and assume that consumers will just keep coming back. To stay top of mind and continue growing, brands need to lean into new formats when it comes to their media mix that encourage consumer loyalty.

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Expand Your Media Mix to Meet Users Where They Are

Survey data led to new pathways at Quartz

The challenge

Natalie Diamond

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Natalie Diamond