Using Online Interactive Forums to Gauge Readers' Opinions and Build Ad Revenue

The Marketing Challenge

Daily news media have to balance two extraordinary and often volatile variables: the day's breaking news and the preferences and opinions of their readers. Their advertising and single-copy revenue streams depend on getting the media mix right every issue. CanWest Media wanted to enhance their reader experience and boost their ad revenues by understanding their readers better.

The Ipsos Interactive Forum Approach

Ipsos Reid partnered with CanWest Media to build twelve Interactive Forums (custom panels), one for each of their regional daily newspapers*, one for their national web property, Canada.com, and one for the national daily, The National Post.

Each forum ranges in size from 1,000 to 2,500 loyal readers for a combined total of over 15,000 readers across Canada.

The CanWest Media custom panels were created to:

• assess the appeal of special interest sections in order to expand the publication's advertising base
• provide editorial content for the newspapers, showing reader opinion
• investigate new products that would appeal to readers
• determine satisfaction levels among loyal readers while continuously improving the newspaper

The Result

Once the panels were built, online survey research with panellists was done to accomplish all of the above objectives. In addition to a proven return on investment, CanWest has found that the forums provide insights into readers' thoughts on hot-button topics fast (in real-time, 24/7). And in the world of newspaper deadlines, fast is important.

CanWest Media was able to identify content areas that would create opportunities for new revenue streams; the quick online polls with their panels created exclusive content for the paper. Participants were able to see content that reflected their opinions, while CanWest was seen as being responsive to their readers' interests.

Ipsos Interactive Forum

Ipsos Interactive Forum is a customized web portal that directly connects an organization with its target audience (customers, prospects, employees). It's a dynamic meeting place where an organization can gain valuable insight into their customers' thoughts about their products and services. There are three main parts:

1. A custom panel database built by Ipsos of our client's target group that is a repository for demographic, profiling, behavioural and survey data;
2. A mail server that manages invites to surveys, reminders and newsletters sent from the application to the panelists;
3. An online survey and reporting engine that allows clients to view instantaneous results from surveys and discussion forums.

The Interactive Forum's custom panel can also be used as a sample source for more complex studies conducted outside the application using Ipsos' full suite of research services.