The editorial director of the economic daily, appointed last April, is driving a new dynamic within the newspaper. Presentation of its “reader fisrt” strategy to modernize the title.
How is “Les Echos” doing?
It is an atypical newspaper in the French media landscape in two respects. Firstly, Les Echos records a fourteenth consecutive year of increase in its circulation; it is rare enough to be highlighted. Then, we are fortunate to be a specialized daily and therefore to have a business model partly linked to advertising but mainly linked to subscriptions like the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times. A pioneering digital media, Les Echos, of which 53% of its revenues come from digital (vs. 25% in 2018), has 62% of its overall audience exclusively on digital. Finally, 80% of its 102,000 subscribers are 100% digital. Around half also consult the PDF in the evening. Thus, 50% of our subscribers read the newspaper, either in paper form or in digital PDF form.
What new organization did you propose to the editorial staff, before being elected by them?
The editorial team is reorganized around a leitmotif of delivering reliable information, wherever readers are, by adapting to their uses and maintaining a high level of requirements whatever the point of contact. We have gone from a media that was already “web first” but still “print minded”, with the objective of producing a daily newspaper at the end of the day, to an economical media 24 hours a day with numerous variations, which places the reader at the center . The editorial team is now made up of four transversal divisions:
-The pole ” Platform “. It is the editorial control tower which is 100% digital. The platform orders, selects, prioritizes and scripts the information produced by the 200 journalists for the daily’s two digital showcases (the site and the application). This division is also made up of a Breaking News team, in charge of very hot news.
-The pole « Audience et engagement » has the mission of suggesting the content produced by the editorial staff to all Les Echos contact points, via all the channels at its disposal (newsletters, social networks, web and app push notifications, etc.). This is our channel for dialogue with readers and subscribers. We know, out of all the papers, how many free and paying readers read it? where do they arrive? By search engines, by newsletters, by the home page, by the application? Are they women or men? Young people, old people? Do they read the entire article, 50%, 10%? Many indicators emerge from this ongoing dialogue.
-The pole « Journal » is responsible for producing the newspaper, available digitally from 9:30 p.m. and on newsstands every morning.
-The pole ” Visual “ brings together video, infographics and iconography. This team guarantees the consistency of the visual identity for all of the brand’s media.
With this new “reader first” organization, we are in working order to be an economical media 24/7.”
What are the first results of these changes?
The reorganization is bearing fruit since audiences are up in October with 24.2 million visits (+10% vs Oct. 2023) driven by search engines (+16% year-on-year) and our proprietary sources (+20 % from newsletters). The impact also concerns recruitment with +27% of new subscribers from the paywall on the site.
And the paper edition in this organization?
Reading the newspaper becomes a “premium” experience which must provide maximum experience for subscribers who are prepared to pay a fair price for it. It’s a product that is important because it is a linear reading mode with a beginning and an end, to which 50% of our subscribers are still attached. It’s a lot, but in the United States, at the Wall Street Journal for example, 10% of subscribers want to have a linear reading of the information. We are working on a new railway and a new model for the start of the year. It will be the “flagship” of Les Echos or “Avenue Montaigne”, in reference to our shareholder LVMH.
The decision-making community is protean. How do you address it in its diversity from an editorial point of view?
Les Echos is aimed both at decision-makers who belong to large companies, our primary target, but also at mid-sized or small structures. We address them via the macro, international pages and regional SME pages with inspiring case studies but also newsletters. Without forgetting start-ups, a community for which the newspaper has become a reference.
Do women decision-makers, who are heavy consumers of the press, have a dedicated place in your media?
Today, women represent 30% of readers and this target is a development priority. They appreciate subjects related to heritage, life at work, and work-life balance. They also like portraits, a more embodied journalistic treatment to address a subject.
What editorial offer do you provide to “young decision-makers” keen on information on innovations and new tech developments?
The proposal dedicated to young decision-makers takes its rightful place within the newspaper for greater visibility. Indeed, we have chosen to integrate this content into the universe of Les Echos by creating new sections, launched in January 2025, on the evolution of the relationship with work and money entitled “working better” and “ my budget. Furthermore, in partnership with Welcome to the Jungle, the title has just launched the video series “Thank you AI”, highlighting the way in which AI can make life easier for young people in business.
You would like to enrich the weekend offer. What is your strategy?
From 2025, we are enriching the weekend offer, on all the brand’s media, with a prominent place in the magazine and in the newspaper, based on a very marked presence of opinions and debates, of the art of living , and the culture, of prescription.
What new formats will you launch in 2025?
Until now an economic generalist, the daily newspaper will offer professionals greater expertise in certain selected sectors. The launch of a first vertical dedicated to asset management is planned for the first quarter of 2025. It will offer the same treatment that has created readers’ trust until now: reliability and decryption of information, reading efficiency. Faced with the multiplicity of sources of information and to respond to the rapid consumption of information, Les Echos will launch “18-20” at the beginning of 2025, a daily early evening meeting within the app, with the 10-15 must-read articles to understand what matters in today’s economic news. A revisited reading of everyday life and above all customizable according to your interests. Like the abundant Anglo-Saxon press. We are considering expanding the weekend offering in 2025 with a third notebook offered each week, in addition to the Les Echos Week End supplement. It could address, always from an economic and business angle, subjects which relate more to the private sphere around culture, money, lifestyle, trends…
Source: www.e-marketing.fr
