Transformative Strategies:
Veszprém Kukac, a Hungarian independent online media, reshaped both its business and content promotion strategies. Originating from the editorial team’s vision during the modernisation phase, the main idea was to use the website as a new revenue stream – selling ad space and banners. The team saw this as an opportunity to create offers for local businesses and entrepreneurs. Facing economic and political pressures in Hungary’s media landscape, Veszprém Kukac experimented with local engagement, hiring young professionals for multimedia production. Despite the challenges, the media outlet achieved notable milestones. After a mentorship process and business support they received during the “Deepening Digital – reconstructing the Central European local media through digital growth strategies”, Veszprém Kukac demonstrated adaptability in navigating the evolving digital media landscape, as well as contributing to increased engagement and positive transformations within the editorial team.
https://www.veszpremkukac.hu/veszprem-kukac-szukseg-van-rank_unikum/
Article about one of the live events, where Veszprém Kukac team met with the audience. Source: www.veszpremkukac.hu
Areas for Improvement
Veszprém Kukac was predominantly staffed by older members. They did not have experience with monetisation, as they never worked on a strategic approach to the sales or any other available monetisation model for online media.
Regarding the content, the team had a strong journalistic background and quality independent articles and topics, but they struggled with multimedia and video. Most of all, they needed a strategic approach to the production and publishing of multimedia content, which was absent because of the lack of planning, skills and human resources.
Strategic progress
Veszprém Kukac underwent a transformative journey in both its business and content promotion strategies. In the context of business development, a designated younger person was employed to manage sales, as well as administrative and financial aspects of the editorial. During the project, Business Model Canvas (BMC) was implemented as a tool that brings a long-term overview of the possibilities for cooperation with business entities, as well as other partners and customers. This process took time for brainstorming, a strategic overview and it opened a new chapter in their understanding of the media market. After the creation of the BMC, the next step was making business offers for clients.
View this post on Instagram
The team chose monthly fees for banners and ads, not by click, mainly because they were still working on the visibility of the brand. Regarding sales campaigns, different channels were used: mailing lists, phone calls, direct meetings and direct sales. Due to the hard economic situation and political pressures, as it is a tough political environment for independent media in Hungary, Veszprém Kukac did not record any sales.
View this post on Instagram
As Vesprem Kukac was a media outlet with mostly older members who lacked interest and skills in new technologies, two young persons were employed for production: a female journalist and social media manager. Two distinct approaches were adopted: firstly, engaging in multimedia content production to promote stories and articles by Veszprém Kukac; and secondly, undertaking multimedia content production for the enhancement of Brand Visibility, which also included two live events, representing meetings with the audience. Production of multimedia content went from zero to two-three posts weekly. An online MoJo workshop was held for young staff, to raise their skills in production. A collaborative synergy was established with the gender-oriented segment of the project, leveraging those stories to plan content for promotion across various social media platforms. Focus on targeting and boosting campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, engaging audiences, and working with metrics, led Veszprém Kukac to reach all goals set in the project.
External IT support implemented complete redesign and modernisation of the website, but also of the backend and metrics. As a part of the new website, an automated weekly newsletter serves as a promotional tool for the editorial and their work, as well as crowdfunding campaigns.
View this post on Instagram
Challenges faced
The main challenge was sales of the offers created for business clients. The editorial was interested in the strategic approach to business, as it gave them a completely new overview of their media outlet and possibilities for income. However, as previously stated, the sales process encountered some setbacks. To overcome this issue, they decided to experiment with crowdfunding, which gave the opportunity for donating to those who were worried about the political retaliation. This approach also includes anonymity to people who want to support them, but are afraid. This decision was connected to recommendations created for Veszprém Kukac in the previous Thomson project – to find bigger media, or local NGOs, and team up with them in the projects. They created a crowdfunding campaign with a fantastic narrative that is focused on preserving young people in their media outlet. Campaign started in October. 2023, and it is projected to last for three months.
Facebook post, asking readers for support via donations. Source: Veszprém Kukac Facebook page
The editorial team’s mindset, predominantly consisting of older members, underwent a complete transformation, overcoming the significant challenge of embracing the various changes taking place. They started enjoying working with youth and adding multimedia to their topics. Another obstacle was introducing weekly staff meetings– not all members live in the same city, so in-person meetings were possible only occasionally. Creating a simple Excel table on Google Drive solved the issue. Every journalist had the obligation to add their topic and deadline to the table weekly, so that social media manager and video journalist can plan multimedia content. Additionally, “Monday”, another online tool for planning, management and coordination of the projects was introduced. The team used this tool to track activities in the project and to assign tasks to designated staff, which is a big step forward in the field of planning and coordination.
View this post on Instagram
“Young people restructured my point of view about journalism and replenished my mind. I learned as much from them as they did from me.” – Gombás Gabriella, editor in-chief of Veszprém Kukac.
