INMA is organising a first Readers First 'meet-up" following the formation of its new focus group for 2021.

Researcher-in-residence and lead of the initiative Greg Piechota will host the event - on the theme How to solve the audience analytics challenges of local publishers - which is free to members.

With data analytics key in growing reader engagement and online subscriptions, the initiative recognises that many local news publishers face deficits in data infrastructure, analytics, testing capabilities and data science skills. A result is inadequate understanding of local news readers and slower growth than national competitors.

The Readers First Meet-Up will be an opportunity to learn about audience data infrastructure, analytics tools and insights to boost reader engagement and online subscriptions from eight German independent regional publishers who teamed up last year to share their learnings.

Presenting speakers include: Meinolf Ellers (chief digital officer, DPA); Christoph Mayer (associate partner/AI lead, Schickler); and Manfred Sauerer (chief editor and managing director of Mittelbayerische Zeitung, Regensburg), all in Germany.

They will discuss the benefits and risks of such collaborations, how to organise collaborative development, analytics and experimentation, and how to benefit from a larger pool of data for advanced analytics while staying compliant with privacy laws.

The German publishers will share insights and talk about the changes they made in workflows and editorial practices.

The webinar takes place on Wednesday, January 20, from 10:00-11:00am New York time. More details from Krista Avedikian at krista.avedikian@inma.org