Digital innovation remains one of the biggest priorities and challenges for publishers this year. Full Fat Things builds tools and solutions that enable those publishers to focus on what matters most to their business, audiences and bottom line.

With the variety of platforms, formats and commercialisation models emerging and evolving at a rapid pace, there are many possibilities and opportunities. It’s hard for media organisations of any size to know where to start. Or how to prioritise unpredictable fledgling digital products.

Digital panic and FOMO are real. And it can be tempting for businesses to try everything on for size when trying to grow digital revenues. But rushing to a conclusion of a specific format, outcome or just the latest shiny new thing isn’t always right. When looking at competitors’ successes and innovations, we encourage them to answer the question: is your infrastructure and business model aligned with those challenges?

Looking back to help move forward

What works or has worked before? Does it naturally map to a digital strategy and align with the core business? When those questions can be answered, we look to figure out the back-to-basic product propositions:

Use

How, where, and why will the customer interact with products and services in a digital environment?

Discoverability

How, where, and why will they find them? Influencers, classic digital marketing. We all know classic SEO is dead.

Value

It can be tempting to focus on aesthetics and wow factor – that can be valid – but will it translate to profit?

Define your priorities

There are several ways publishers can grow into multi-channel media operations. We have worked with many different organisations to get results in many different ways. One thing we caution against is trying to do everything at once, without resourcing up sufficiently for success, as it will stunt growth and challenge morale. In print, publishers picked a priority from subs or advertising. We encourage them to do the same thing in digital. And to focus on the business outcomes and not just on the technology or platforms.

Is it possible to monetise digital products through advertising, affiliates, ecommerce, paywalls and micro-payments? Absolutely.

Is this all possible with the same team? Unlikely.

And is it a good idea to lean solely on the same people conducting business as usual? Almost certainly not.

We help customers pick goals. And to make them realistic for the business they have or the business they want in the future. We encourage them to be honest about their appetite, investment, commitment and buy-in to make sure they’re prepared with the skills and resources necessary to give them the best chance of success.

Align your core strengths

This doesn’t mean just doing more of the same in a digitised way. We specialise in finding the things at the centre of a business that make it tick and translating that to digital possibilities.

Publishers usually have one or two really core strengths that make their products special. These strengths include truly unique content or access, authority and perspective on a particular subject or a super valuable, hard-to-reach audience. Identifying what makes the business special, and in which order, helps determine development priorities.

If there is already knowledge and confidence in why a business or portfolio exists and is successful – simply put: why customers choose it – our experience is that the raw ingredients to create amazing digital products and services are already there. We just help find the right tools to bring them to life.

Why Full Fat Things?

Our team at Full Fat Things has a combined experience of over 70 years in the publishing industry. We partner with organisations like Future, EMAP, The Economist, Key Publishing and Which? on B2B and B2C products.

We become the integrated extension of in-house publishing teams. We enable publishing specialists to focus on the content and audiences that drive their business by providing the technology to deal with the rest.

Implementing digital transformation can be daunting for any organisation. Customers have already gone through their own personal digital transformation as technology has entered their lives, and now they have high expectations. A digital partner can help you navigate the process and meet those demands.

Digital transformation software companies provide an ideal solution for businesses with no in-house expertise. They offer a full range of digital transformation solutions including application development, IT modernisation, automation, customer experience strategy, data analytics and employee training. 

Despite its name, digital transformation prioritises user experience over technology. Every business has unique requirements, which depend on its goals and its stakeholders’ needs. If you want to offer something fast, focused and timely, you’ll need expert guidance and support from a digital transformation consultancy.  

The importance of finding the right digital partner for your organisation

Digital transformation is a journey with people and change at its heart. Unfortunately, people are not always easy with change. That’s why you need a digital partner who understands your customer personas and puts them at the forefront of the process. 

Digital transformation software companies may create top-tier applications, but integrating technology across your business is only one aspect of the process. The more challenging part is managing the change in culture. According to global research firm Gartner, only 32% of HR leaders think their company is effective at embedding culture into daily work life. Specialist digital transformation agencies are adept at collaborating, taking the right risks and embedding a positive mindset organisation-wide. 

The right digital partner takes time to understand the needs of your stakeholders and make sure they feel involved in rolling out any digital strategy. They know how to get staff and customers on board. And if everyone understands why the change is needed, it’s easier to integrate technology into every area of your organisation.

What to look for in a digital transformation consultancy

The right digital partner will be transparent and flexible. They work within the agreed budget, yet relentlessly innovate and develop high-performing technology, workflows and functionality.

A good digital transformation agency will:

Work SMART
 

Integrating new technologies and reframing digitisation within a business involves experimentation. Full Fat Things uses specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (SMART) goals to design and implement bespoke digital transformation solutions.

The consultancy should assess your existing systems and use key performance indicators (KPIs) to keep measuring your performance against your goals. This allows businesses to future-proof their systems, functionality and processes while enabling growth and acquisition. If current systems work, they should stay. A skilled agency recognises a good thing when it sees it.

Provide user-centric digital software solutions

A robust and reliable range of technological products makes any digital transformation process go smoothly. These can be out-of-the-box or customised applications, but they should integrate with your existing systems.

For example, we worked with information services company Wolters Kluwer to deliver a suite of product-specific solutions and self-service portals. The goal was to unify their customer products onto one platform. By combining Drupal content platforms and Laravel customer management portals, customers could access their own information, subscriptions and products, as well as buying new products

Have a proven track record

A digital agency is only as good as its clients – expect to see a portfolio of clients and glowing testimonials. They should willingly share the results of their projects and have an active presence on social media. A broad portfolio reveals an ability to adapt to across industries, while a specialist portfolio (finance, charity, healthcare, etc) shows a reassuring level of familiarity and expertise.

They should deliver end-to-end digital transformation solutions, not just one-off digital packages. Look for comprehensive and cross-functional services that completely transform your company from the inside out, starting with a cultural shift.

Reduce risk

Risk management is a significant component of the digital transformation process. Risk comes in different forms; think cybersecurity, data privacy and technological reliability. A reputable agency knows how to scale and protect any technology deployed.

Provide training and guidance

Getting support from all stakeholders is essential in embedding cultural change. Ongoing guidance around best practice and using the new technology empowers teams and helps shape the vision of the business. The best consultancies are on hand to answer queries and provide training and workshops where necessary. Full Fat Things delivered architectural and technical training to Orange when they helped the telecommunications giant migrate to Drupal.

Many digital publishers rely on display advertising as their main route to driving revenue growth, be it programmatic or direct. But trends continue to show that it pays more than ever to diversify revenue streams.

The Digital Publishers Revenue Index (DPRI) for Q3 2022 shows digital publishing revenue grew by 2.7% from the previous year with steady growth from both display advertising and subscriptions revenue.

Those stats reinforce why digital publishers need to double down on their digital product strategies and development plans.

Why digital revenues are growing

Many online publishers are seeing an uptick in digital revenues across b2b and b2c sectors, despite additional pressures on spend through the cost-of-living crisis. So what's powering this growth? 

People will pay for great content

Subscription revenue is up 12.1% on Q3 of last year thanks to publishers and audiences alike seeing the value in unique, high-calibre content to cut through the noise of social media and free/ads-led output.

A report by lineup last year demonstrates that the pre-Covid concern of 'subscription fatigue' proved to be unfounded. During the crisis there was a notable shift towards digitally-fulfilled subscriptions that is here to stay.

"Green Consumerism"

As sustainability continues to gain prevalence in consumer decisions, only the highest of quality print products will endure. Print is by no means dead but the lower end of the quality spectrum is definitely on its last legs as audiences feel more inclined to justify their environmental impact. Reading material online is part of our day-to-day so unless the print product adds significant value to the experience, it's destined for closure.

The cost of paper

Readers are not alone in driving this decline, the rise in paper costs has decimated the margins of low value print product models, with zero hope of a turnaround.

Meanwhile...ad revenue has flourished

Despite ad blocking features to combat more intrusive advertising, marketing budgets are being channeled increasingly to digital channels following audience behaviours and consumer patterns. With a whopping 13.9% growth on Q3 2021 according to the DPRI report.

How to drive and diversify digital revenue

Even with growing display ad revenues, the increasing restriction on target based advertising in today’s digital landscape and volatility of ads revenue, it makes sense for publishers to evolve what they do to drive revenue to their brands.

There are plenty of practical ways that publishers can take to increase revenue.

Subscription models

Readers are increasingly open to paying for high quality, trustworthy content. And an advert-free reading experience is equally desirable - we're looking at you, ad blocker users. 

Growing numbers of publishers are adopting a variety of subscription strategies, which broadly fall into several categories.

• Hard paywalls - only subscribers can access content;
• Metered paywalls - website visitors can access a set amount of articles for free, before getting asked to subscribe;
• Freemium paywalls - visitors can read selected content, with advertising, without charge. Readers then pay for ‘premium’ content.

• Dynamic paywalls - a personalised approach where the paywall shows based on a user’s behaviour and audience segment.

   

Sponsorship

Have you ever noticed that some online publishers review or promote the products and services of specific brands? Many of those publishers do so because they get paid to promote other brands. Authoritative online publishers can consider sponsorship deals with big-name brands to increase their digital revenue.

Podcasts

Audio continues to grow as both a method of consuming content and commercialising it. According to the IAB Podcast Ad Revenue 2022-2024 Projections steady double digit growth is still predicted for the next couple of years.

Publishers create audio (or video) podcasts on a subject relevant to their content focus and market them through their own channels, as well as through podcast players. According to the report, category diversification is accelerating spelling great news for niche, specialist publishers. Revenue is earned through sponsorship deals or advertising, with the added advantage of promoting all other channels within the brand. Pre-roll and dynamic ad insertion is on the rise with grown seen on host and announcer-read ads too.

Newsletter

Publishers are already content rich. With a few tweaks newsletters can become another income stream. With an existing database of content thirsty readers with an interest in the brand's topic areas. And there are companies that want to reach those very people. A well designed newsletter with an advert from relevant advertisers offers great click through potential. And remember to track open rates and times to optimise it even further.

Thousands of people share social media images on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more every single day. When they share content, they usually do this without noting the original source or the brand.

Imagine how frustrating it would be to spend hours crafting a perfectly articulated post, only to find the person who ends up reading it, whether it’s 5 or 50 shares down the line, doesn’t even know it was you who posted it. This happens more often than it should, and it all comes down to branding.

One way to avoid this is to brand your posts with your company logo. By stamping your logo onto the images you attach to your posts, you can associate your brand with every share that occurs, whether that’s 5, or 50!

Take these images, for example.

Image

It doesn’t matter how many times this tweet from FourFourTwo is re-tweeted because the brand on the image means every reader knows the original source. It also means that as a business, you get the credit you deserve. And if that tweet gains social media traction, your brand is in prime position to receive the benefit.

If you look at the original source on the FourFourTwo website, you’ll see the “brand stamp” is not there. This is fine when the image is on your own site, as they already associate you as the source. However, if it’s shared, without your brand stamp you lose out on gaining the credit and brand association of your efforts. 

Ultimately, it’s essential to put a stamp on any images you share on social media to optimise the impact of marketing efforts. You don’t need a professional to add the image for you. There are many tools out there that brand images swiftly, and for half the price.

Talk to us about Super Social Polish, our social media image branding tool, which is embedded into your site. When you or a reader shares a page to social media, it automatically brands editorial images with your logo and the headline, for a seamless branded sharing experience.

Digital transformation has become something of a buzzword in business circles over the past few years. While it serves well as a catch-all term for describing the transition from old and inefficient practices to a new, more streamlined digital approach, it can seem dramatic. It suggests a total transformation that impacts an entire organisation overnight. In reality, the transformation is more of an evolution to an efficient, digital future. And one that requires a cultural shift that questions process and embraces change.

For some, viewing digital transformation as one over-arching project feels overwhelming. If approached like this, it often contributes to the project losing direction, or even getting side-lined. 

There are common challenges that business of all sizes face when approaching digital transformation: introducing new systems, changing processes and getting buy-in. And when attempted at scale and with an all-encompassing approach, the challenges are even greater. 

The role of bespoke software development

As the saying goes, how do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time. 

While the end goal may be to transform an organisation, some of our most successful digital transformation projects started as much smaller tasks. By focusing on one area that needed modernising, the successful delivery of that solution was a catalyst for more change across the organisation. 

Seeing first-hand how a solution improves a particular aspect of the business helps the wider organisation understand the business benefits of digital transformation. It also helps overcome the challenge of getting support at all levels — from directors concerned about cost to team members reluctant to adapt — when trying to get a digital transformation project off the ground. Showing tangible improvements in systems and processes often gets these people on-board with further change.

Digital transformation software companies

At the heart of our digital transformation projects is bespoke software development. While off-the-shelf solutions sometimes work, we believe it’s the customisation that delivers a result tailored to the business’ goals. Some examples of the digital transformation projects we’ve developed customised solutions for include:

•    connecting internal processes, reducing duplication and eliminating manual errors
•    improving customer experiences by moving them online or enabling self-service
•    automating all or part of a manually intensive task such as the process of putting print copy on the web or reducing customer service requirements.

 
Before we write any code, we work with the organisation to understand what each stakeholder needs and what existing technology is already in place. Based on this information, we create connective software and new applications that together transform any organisation’s digital position. 

The key to delivering a successful solution is selecting the right tool for the job. And this relies on having an experienced team with a diverse range of skills. At Full Fat Things, we have a breadth of knowledge and experience of multiple platforms, including Ruby on Rails, Drupal, Ember, React Native, Vue.js and Laravel, enabling us to select the technology best suited to the project requirements. Whether they are internal or external, users should be central to these requirements, with the goal being to make their lives easier. The platform selection and solution design need to factor this from the outset, as well as integrating with existing systems and internal processes.

And it’s here! The latest version of Drupal – version 9 – has launched, marking the start of a new era for the open source platform. We’re excited as we’ve been waiting for this for some time and can now start to migrate our clients on to the new version.

It also means we’re updating our advice on the strategy for any organisation that hasn’t yet planned its migration path. Given that Drupal 9.0 is effectively the same as the latest version of Drupal 8 (apart from a couple of aspects), there is no longer any benefit for Drupal 7 users to upgrade via the latest version of Drupal 8. You'll need a complete rewrite either way. Drupal 8 users, on the other hand, will still need to upgrade to at least version 8.8 (the latest version is Drupal 8.9) and then to version 9, for reasons we explain below.

But the launch of Drupal 9 doesn’t mean that upgrading is now without any potential pitfalls. There are still issues you need to be aware of to ensure the upgrade is painless and you can reap all the benefits that Drupal 9 promises.

Missing the deadline to upgrade to Drupal 9

The most obvious pitfall for any organisation using an older version of Drupal is missing the deadline of November 2021 for Drupal 8, and November 2022 for Drupal 7. If you haven’t upgraded by then, you can access support via a paid service. But this means you are both paying for the privilege and also missing out on the many benefits introduced in the various minor releases of version 8. Yes, you'll have to rewrite your Drupal 7 applications, but a good agency will know how to do this effectively and efficiently.

You’re also putting your organisation at risk if you don’t upgrade, as there will no longer be security updates and bug fixes, other than critical ones. You can sign up for security updates with an approved Drupal 7 extended support vendor or a Drupal 6 long term support vendor – but again, why not put this money towards an upgrade instead?

Finally, if you don’t upgrade by the time support ends, third party software scans may flag your applications as being insecure. And nobody wants to lose business because of this.

Not being prepared
 

Just like a good Scout, you should be prepared before doing any upgrade. And that means doing a complete site audit – or getting one done by an experienced third party – to understand the extent of what you’re working with, and also creating a clear upgrade plan. If you don’t do a full audit, you won’t know how much work the upgrade will involve, which will have implications for your budgeting and mean you are unaware of the likely timescales involved. You may also miss modules or code that needs upgrading, which later on could result in features or whole applications that don’t work.

Remember, this is a one-way path – once your site has moved to Drupal 9, there’s no going back. So it’s important to get everything right. Your upgrade plan therefore needs to include testing on a separate copy of your site before going live. We can’t emphasise this enough – a thorough testing plan is important.

You also need to assess which features you need to keep and whether there are any you want to add. Without doing this, you may spend money updating features users don’t want or care about. Just as importantly, you could miss the opportunity to add features users do want or that would make your application more attractive, as well as ones that could make your team’s jobs easier and more efficient. Doing only what you need and doing everything at the same time is the most time- and cost-efficient approach.

This aspect is particularly important to get right if you are upgrading from the older version 7, as the upgrade is a bigger task than from version 8. But it will still save you time and money overall if you are upgrading from older minor releases of version 8.

One final point here is that your audit should look at the hardware as well as the software. The underlying system requirements for Drupal 9 have moved on. So if your website is running on an older hosting platform, that may need upgrading to work efficiently – or at all. The upgrade status module will check this for you along with everything else.

Not doing the job properly

For those who have already upgraded to the latest version of Drupal 8 – either as a stepping stone to 9 or simply because you’ve been keeping up with each minor release – the route to version 9 has been heralded as straightforward. And it is, but it still requires more than just a direct upgrade.

The most important thing is to run the module that will check for deprecated code that has been removed in version 9 and any third party dependencies that will impact performance after the upgrade, or may even stop it working altogether. This is why Drupal 8.7 users and below need to upgrade via Drupal 8.8 or 8.9.

Among the things you will need to do are upgrade contributed modules and themes to the latest versions and check your templates. And you will also have to address any changes due to any prior customisation work, the extent of which may vary enormously. If you don't do this properly, there may be code that simply doesn’t work after the upgrade, limiting functionality and causing site users to get frustrated, potentially damaging your credibility.

A good agency will work through all of this with you to ensure nothing gets missed and takes the most efficient route to get to where you want to be. Our aim is always to let you focus on your business while the upgrade work happens in the background.

Once you have upgraded to 8.8 or 8.9, it would be pointless to then not continue and upgrade to version 9. Using the latest version of 8 – which is now 8.9 – gives you all the security patches, as does version 9.0 of course.

Another potential pitfall is not migrating content properly if you are upgrading from version 7 (this won’t be an issue if you are upgrading from version 8). It is possible that you could lose content if this happens, but with a good plan this shouldn’t happen.

Running out of time and money

Every upgrade takes time and costs money. And in the current climate, we appreciate that you could run out of one or the other before the upgrade is complete.

This is why planning is so important. And also why we recommend an agile approach that would enable you to safely complete enough of the upgrade work to go live with a reduced feature set at least before the Drupal 8 deadline of November 2021 or Drupal 7 deadline of November 2022.

The agile approach also means that if you are upgrading from older versions of Drupal 8, you can stop at version 8.9 for a while if you need to, with minimal work needed to take the final upgrade step when you have the budget.

Asking the wrong questions

Few organisations will do a Drupal upgrade themselves, so it’s important that you choose a capable partner to work with on your upgrade. The potential pitfalls we’ve already mentioned will give you ideas of what to check for if you're looking for an upgrade partner.

We also suggest asking for examples of recent Drupal 8 sites a partner has worked on and their experience with preparing sites for Drupal 9 (given that few will actually have completed any Drupal 9 upgrades just yet), along with references. Some agencies that cut their teeth on Drupal 7 sites seem to write Drupal 8 sites in what we would call a ‘Drupal 7 way’, which could cause you problems later on.

According to research by Gartner, digital transformation initiatives by large traditional businesses are typically taking twice as long and costing twice as much as anticipated. But this is also creating big opportunities for smaller and more agile enterprises that continue to lead the way with digital innovations.

By contrast, smaller teams seldom have problems with information silos and communicate much more effectively. Smaller budgets also create an environment of ingenuity where innovation can thrive. Companies that upgrade their company culture redefine their business and leverage digital technologies are transforming the way they deliver value to their customers.

Technology has traditionally enabled businesses to deliver better products and services while also reducing costs. But the digital transformation is seamlessly integrating technology into every area of your business.

However, your digital transformation journey is not about technology at all. It's about change. It's time to unlearn traditional methods and the familiarity of our analogue past. No more five-year-plans and never-ending IT projects. It's time to retire the phrase, "But, we've always done it this way."

Here are the four critical elements of what a successful digital formation should look like:

Find your why and put strategy before tech

Since 2000, an incredible 52% of companies in the Fortune 500 have disappeared as a result of digital disruption. Combine this stat with the fact that £10bn was invested into British technology start-ups last year, and there is no escaping the fact that you need a different strategy.

Unfortunately, remaining relevant in a digital age is not as simple as buying an off the shelf tech solution. It's much more about understanding the increasing demands and expectations of your customers. Only then can you begin to build new business models and introduce technology to bring your strategy to life.

The fact it's a journey, not a destination can feel incredibly daunting for many leaders. But, the good news is the emergence of digital transformation solution providers that ensure that you don't have to navigate unchartered digital waters alone.

For example, we work closely with our clients to define the goals for their digital transformation project. We then create a 'tree' of objectives that flows from these goals into clear project outcomes. Remember that the success of your digital transformation project will be determined by your people and your strategy.

Diving headfirst into the latest shiny tech solution that is looking for a problem to solve is possibly the worst mistake to make. Placing tech before strategy and objectives are the biggest reasons why so many projects fail.

You can only improve what you can measure

Armed with the right strategy, it's also crucial that you record a baseline measurement before you implement any changes or improvements. Essentially, it's a snapshot of where you are now that enables you to see what you need to improve and record the progress on your digital transformation journey.

Ensuring your specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely (SMART) goals are in place alongside your baseline is critical. It also becomes much easier to deliver clear project outcomes. The use of key performance indicators (KPIs) will keep you on track and allow you to tweak what is not working as you progress forward.

For example, we passionately believe in helping clients capture their KPIs and begin to measure them on their existing systems before even thinking about starting any new development plan. This simple approach enables businesses to identify exactly where improvements can be made while also making it easier to measure future successes too.

Metrics enable you to make data-driven decisions based on your goals. It's these insights that help you transform workflows, functions, and processes, not technology.

Digital transformation is about people, not technology

Contrary to popular opinion, it's your customers and employees that are key to your success, not technology. Businesses, websites, products, and services are all designed and developed by people. Although we buy solutions, we connect with each other.

People are at the heart of every digital transformation strategy. Whether it's transforming your employee engagement or customer experience, it's the hearts and minds of people that will be taken on a journey of change. For these reasons alone, both employees and your customer base will need to be on board before implementing any technology.

Many businesses fall into the trap of implementing technology at the expense of human employees. However, only a hybrid approach that leverages the best of humans and machines can increase efficiency, improve performance, and create new experiences fit for a digital age.

We believe that you cannot design a system, build and implement it without visualizing the people who will use it. We always create personas and user stories to ensure that we always have both the customer and stakeholder in mind when we think about change.

Personalised customer experiences

It's no coincidence that the most highly rated companies in the world are also leading the way in digital customer experiences. Bringing both your employees and customers along for the ride and making them feel a part of your digital transformation journey is critical.

Over five years have passed since IBM's Bridget van Kranlingen warned, "The last best experience that anyone has anywhere, becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere." Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify are just a few examples of companies that provide a seamless, personalised experience on any device. But this has now become the norm.

Unsurprisingly, Accenture revealed that 75% of customers are more likely to buy from a company that knows their name, their preferences and recommends a product or service to them without being creepy. Experiences have now become even more important than the product or service itself.

The lines between B2B and B2C are also beginning to blur as employees bring these same expectations as a consumer into the workplace top. For your business to remain relevant in the eyes of your customers, the digital transformation of everything should be seen as an opportunity to seize a competitive advantage providing unique experiences before they look elsewhere.