Oxford News Marketing Programme

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Partnership with the Meta Journalism Project to support publishers in marketing their journalism

Start date:

Duration:

  • 8 weeks

Time commitment:

  • Short programme

Location:

  • Live virtual

Cost:

  • Free (covered by the Meta Journalism Project)

About the programme

Expanding to new regions including Middle East and North Africa (MENA)/Latin America (LATAM)/Asia Pacific (APAC) including India.

We have partnered with the Meta Journalism Project to develop this unique programme to respond directly to the acute challenges faced by the publishing industry, brought about by fundamental changes to the very nature of the sector. The news industry faces unprecedented disruption through digitisation, which has lately even been accelerated due to the pandemic.

It's one thing to be experts at telling others' stories – but it is becoming increasingly important for publishers to tell their own stories successfully and effectively. 

On this programme you will learn to:

  • Develop strong, audience-oriented articulations of their story, purpose, and brand identity
  • Effectively communicate the value proposition and USPs of their journalism-based products to their audiences
  • Establish clear and optimised strategic marketing KPIs and systems for measuring their performance against those KPIs
  • Ensure that their strategic marketing and brand-building activities make the best use of current digital media channels and formats.

By tackling the fundamental needs of the sector, this programme, underpinned by world-class Oxford Saïd research and informed by the latest industry insight, will transform participating organisations’ approach to marketing. In covering marketing fundamentals, strategy planning, implementation, and analysis right through to the future of marketing, you will learn to market your journalism effectively across all channels.

The programme will be delivered virtually, with a mix of live interactive sessions and networking breakouts designed to mirror the Oxford classroom experience, complemented by a dedicated suite of resources, ensuring that all participants have unrivalled access to cutting-edge resources covering the fundamentals of contemporary marketing as it applies to the publishing industry at this critical time of transformation.

Faculty and research

Who can apply?

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The programme is for individuals with responsibility for Marketing/Sales in the news industry (eg CMO, Subscription Lead, Head of Marketing).

To make the most out of this programme you should make sure to have / bring along a strong ally from the newsroom (eg Editor in Chief, Head of Editorial, Newsroom Lead, Membership Director). In the run-up to the programme, you will be advised on this.

Outline

Week 1 - Foundations of marketing

MENA | LATAM delivery: Tuesday 17 May, 2-3.30pm (UK)

APAC delivery: Thursday 19 May, 5.30-7am (UK)

The programme begins by covering marketing from a strategic perspective. In this week we will:

  • Consider the role that strategic marketing should play in driving growth for all kinds of organisations, including news media organisations
  • Discuss key strategic marketing assets organisations can cultivate and why they are important
  • Consider what it means to be a value-creating, customer-centric organisation

 

Week 2 - Customer centricity in practice

MENA | LATAM delivery: Wednesday 25 May, 2-3pm (UK)

APAC delivery Wednesday 25 May, 6-7am (UK)

The first tutorial will focus on discussing the strategic marketing principles from week 1 (marketing assets, customer centricity) in the context of each participant’s organisation. The focus will be on considering how strong each of the marketing assets are in the organisation, how customer centric the organisation is, and how to improve on these fronts

Week 3 - Brand strategy

MENA | LATAM delivery: Tuesday 31 May, 2-3.30pm (BST)

APAC delivery: Wednesday 1 June, 5:30-7am (BST)

In this live session we will take a deep dive into one of the most important marketing assets, your brand. News organisations sometimes take brand as a given, yet there is much to be learned about successful brand strategy from other industries. In this week we will:

  • Appreciate the importance of branding as part of a marketing strategy, and the value relevance of brands as one of the key marketing assets
  • Understand the main components of brand strategy formulation, including positioning and brand identity, as well as brand purpose

Week 4 - News organisation branding

MENA | LATAM delivery: Tuesday 7 June, 2-3pm (BST)

APAC delivery: Thursday 9 June, 6-7am (BST)

Our second tutorial will take the principles of brand strategy from week 3 and apply them, critically, to each participant’s organisation’s brand. The focus will be on identifying strengths and weaknesses of each brand in order to identify concrete ways to enhance the value of each brand in service of marketing and overall organisational goals.

Week 5 - Advertising and communications; data and analytics

MENA | LATAM delivery: Tuesday 14 June, 2-3.30pm (BST)

APAC delivery: Thursday 16 June, 5.30-7am (BST)

The focus of this session is twofold. First, we will discuss advertising and communications with an emphasis on new ways of thinking about these key components of marketing strategy execution. Second, data and analytics will be featured, focusing on how marketing professionals should be making the most of increasing amounts of data to drive their strategies, customer management activities, and campaigns. Specifically, we will:

  • Remind ourselves of some basic models of mass communication, persuasion and social influence
  • Consider new(er) forms of advertising/communications media channels and how they can be effectively used
  • Appreciate the importance of data in marketing and, in particular, analytics (including machine learning and AI based approaches) for informing good decision making

Week 6 - Being data-informed and developing an analytics minds

MENA | LATAM delivery: Tuesday 5 July, 2-3pm (BST)

APAC delivery: Thursday 7 July, 6-7am (BST)

This tutorial builds on week 5’s content on data and analytics with the aim of bringing the concepts to life for each participant. We will share experiences on how data and analytics are used in participants’ organisations. Importantly, we will also consider in practical terms what being 'data-informed' means and how to develop an “analytics mindset” in the organisation.

Week 7 - Strategy and leadership

MENA | LATAM delivery: Tuesday 12 July, 2-3.30pm (BST)

APAC delivery: Thursday 14 July, 5.30-7am (BST)

Our final live plenary session as a whole group will focus on developing strong, clear, and effective marketing strategies, with a complementary focus on leadership skills needed to be a successful strategic marketer. We will:

  • Explain the components of a comprehensive marketing strategy and how they must relate to one another
  • Develop a plan for implementing a marketing strategy, including having good objectives, selecting key performance indicators and determining ways to measure performance against those goals
  • Consider the qualities of an effective marketing leader
  • Appreciate the need to manage multiple stakeholders in order to drive change

Week 8 - Individual actions and leadership goals

MENA | LATAM delivery: Tuesday 19 July 2-3pm (BST)

APAC delivery: Thursday 21 July, 6-7am (BST)

The final tutorial will give participants an opportunity to share their intended post-programme actions with their peers and to get constructive feedback. We will focus a lot on the leadership and change/influence elements of how to make these actions happen in an effective, successful way.

In partnership with Meta

  • Read more about Meta Journalism