The Smart Data Initiative is the third subject matter deep-dive endeavour by the INMA, following its two-year-old Readers First Initiative and recently launched Product Initiative.

Combined, the three INMA initiatives are designed to elevate the transformative intersection of subscriptions, data and product at media companies.

The new data-focused initiative aims to focus on five key areas, which include:

Tying data to business strategy
Data plays a critical role in accelerating digital transformation of news media, according to the INMA. It therefore will surface the best ways to align data initiatives to editorial and business objectives and will build a business case for the investment in data infrastructure and partnerships.

Practical applications
Armed with data insights and through rigorous experimentation, news media companies aspire to engage audiences better, grow reader revenue and reinvent advertising in the post-third-party cookie era. Therefore, the INMA will bring all data-focused best practices and benchmarks to bear.

Data fundamentals
"New tech and data infrastructure is becoming a backbone for digital publishing," says the INMA. "Understand the technology stack required to enable monetisation. Learn how to register and log in your audiences to unlock the value."

Advances in data analytics
Thanks to machine learning and AI, media companies learn more about customers and their journeys, predict behaviours and segment them to better fit their products, services and their marketing mix. The Smart Data Initiative will  aim to unleash the potential of new methods and technologies.

Data-positive culture
"As media companies reset their internal cultures around engagement, they democratise the use of data for decision-making and make it central to their day-to-day work. Share ideas and inspire change at your organisation through this new initiative," adds the INMA.

The Smart Data Initiative will have at least six deliverables for INMA members. These include:
  • a bi-weekly newsletter
  • a Slack channel for data enthusiasts
  • bi-monthly meet-ups
  • reports, and
  • a master class and summit for richer learnings.
Heading the Smart Data Initiative for INMA is Grzegorz Piechota, the association's researcher-in-residence. Former senior researcher at Harvard and Oxford universities, he started his career in journalism and led the newsroom of Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland.

"The Smart Data Initiative aspires to provide a blueprint for revolutionising publishers' value propositions, operating and monetisation models, while maintaining their missions and values," concludes Earl J. Wilkinson, executive director and CEO of INMA. "We aim to transform the online news business and make journalism sustainable by helping publishers analyse and act on data in new and creative ways."

For more information, visit www.inma.org. You can also follow INMA on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.