IF YOU read ONE THING
If you’re not telling data stories, you should be

Metrics-savvy brands, from Spotify to Fandango, are harnessing their data to tell unique stories that communicate value nobody else can provide—and you can do this, too. “You can have a ton of internal data that is boring on the surface, but lying underneath are insights that speak to interesting trends, consumer preferences, new societal norms, or perspectives not often considered,” writes Fractl’s Amanda Milligan. These three benefits may convince you to use data storytelling to strengthen your brand and meet audience needs.

1. Your brand is seen as an authority. Publishing data-backed content positions you as a subject matter expert and thought-leader that audiences can trust.
2. You have much more flexibility in publishing and promoting engaging content. Rather than being bound to only creating a media splash around big changes or announcements, data journalism can be produced more consistently, which can lead to greater exposure. 
3. You learn much more about your target audience in the process. To produce data stories that are useful and interesting, it’s important to do audience research to identify audience needs and determine if you’re meeting them.

POWERSTAT
There isn’t a best day for your email campaigns …
but there are worst ones

By a slight margin, Thursday email campaigns perform the best when measuring open rates, according to data from email service Campaign Monitor. Surprisingly, Saturdays perform just as well as the rest of the week. Emails sent on Sundays and Mondays perform the worst.

Source: Associations Now

TREND WATCH
LinkedIn’s going lifestyle

The professional networking site is no longer just for business and career-focused news. Publishers are seeing interest in a variety of story types on the platform—everything from videos of dogs racing on treadmills to articles about eating in space and lists of all the weird products you can buy on Amazon. Indu Chandrasekhar, director of audience development at WIRED, notes that the organization shares most of its published content on the platform, but has found that “business, security, science, ideas and long-read articles tend to do particularly well.” Similarly, USA Today’s audience editor of emerging platforms, Alex Ptachick, noticed that the stories that did best on LinkedIn “were the ones focused on the consumer or ‘news you can use.’” [Like what we have below]

NEWS YOU CAN USE
Start with your audience’s habits—then test

After noticing a high portion of visitors to its company information pages were under 34, Bloomberg’s chief product officer, Julia Beizer, decided to investigate. She and engineer David Harding came up with a hypothesis: These young visitors might be looking for jobs at these companies. The hypothesis and subsequent testing of that hypothesis ultimately led to the development of a new product: Work Wise, a newsletter aimed at helping people succeed in their professional lives. The newsletter will run for six months as a test to see if there’s an audience and business opportunity for this kind of content. “If you look at [CEO] Justin Smith’s strategy for Bloomberg Media overall, it’s about inventing new businesses as we go,” said Beizer. “We start with our audience and work backward.”

PERSPECTIVES
Peak podcast or poor planning?

The podcasting business is growing. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that executives at Apple “have reached out to media companies and their representatives to discuss buying exclusive rights to podcasts,” a move supposedly inspired by anxiety over Spotify’s ascendance as a platform. But despite the industry’s substantial growth—listenership has doubled since 2014—not everyone is cut out to host a podcast. A recent New York Times article, provocatively titled “Have We Hit Peak Podcast?” opened with an anecdote about two women who started a podcast and quit, dejected, after six episodes. This drew the ire of a number of audio producers and inspired a heated debate: Is the industry really in trouble, or are budding audio journalists just naive about the work that goes into podcast production?

• “We revere the great interviewers, but it’s an incredible skill that nobody has. What did Terry Gross do before she had her own show? Well, she was an interviewer, not a marketer for a software company.” - Tom Webster, vice president of strategy for Edison Research (The New York Times)
• “Normal cost of a 15-minute long story at a major storytelling podcast:
  - 2 months
  - 6 pre-interviews, 3 interviews, 7 hours of tape
  - 10 drafts
  - 2-4 edits, each 1 to 4-hours long with 2-5 editors in the room each time.
  - 2 days of mixing/scoring
  Don't. Lowball. Us." - Stephanie Foo, former This American Life producer (Twitter)
• “The world probably doesn’t need many more long-winded, unedited talk shows, but the space has far from peaked. International audiences already love podcasts, but there’s likely more room for growth and for translating existing shows into other languages. Also, the podcast space could benefit from a wider, more diverse pool of hosts, and it’s encouraging to see Google, Spotify, and others seek out and support those voices.” - Ashley Carman, reporter at The Verge (The Verge)
• “I don’t want to be mean to people who are naive about how hard podcasting is, that’s understandable. But the *idea* that it’s easy, or SHOULD be easy, trickles up and actually affects my bottom line every day. It’s frustrating and bums me out.” - Jane Marie, journalist and podcast host (Twitter)

This week in our office

Lizzy, our insights editor, did an amazing job hosting her first project chat. It was both informative and fun to learn all about a recent content strategy and brand refresh partnership.

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