With experts on board in five areas, INMA is turning from an ideas association to one focussed on insights, executive director Earl Wilkinson says.

In an end-of-year message, he hopes 2022 will be the final year in which members will “mostly be physically separated from each other”.

Following INMA’s “first-ever effort to scale initiatives”, he sees a slowing growth path for subscriptions as engagement wanes, with product and data driving what’s next with personalisation, a repositioning of newsrooms closer to the business of news, and the blossoming of advertising beyond ‘advertising’.

“We aim to redefine our impact and influence on the news industry, with one example being how subscription benchmarks show big differences in subscriber acquisition and retention,” Wilkinson says. “We now have experts on board in product, subscriptions, data, advertising and newsrooms to deliver more ideas and insights.”

The association is running at record-high membership – including the arrival of broadcasters – with more members engaging with it. “This means an evolving INMA community from which peer media companies can learn and benchmark – making the association highly different and unique in community makeup,” he says. “This will challenge us to leverage the network’s knowledge amid a changing news ecosystem. INMA is more digital in its community than ever before.”