Laura Quirin
Founder
The Brazilian Report
Name |
The Brazilian Report |
Description |
Login: contribute@brazilian.report Password: GbZxVbJ3D)$UFDbgj8&VEbzr The Brazilian Report was founded in 2017, and is an online-only Brazilian media outlet uniquely positioned to offer an English-language insider’s view on news and current affairs in Brazil and Latin America. With a strong focus on politics and economics, The Brazilian Report explains Brazil and Latin America to foreign audiences, using a mixed model of paid subscriptions offering members-only content (such as articles and newsletters), and free content (like our podcast, live blogs, videos, cartoons) along with snippets to encourage readers to take a deeper dive. The paid offerings are split into three subscription categories behind an unbreakable paywall: Lite, Standard, and Premium. Each subscription provides access to a type and level of content that corresponds to the reader’s commitment. Lite subscription provides access to articles only, for example, while newsletters are offered with more expensive memberships. The website runs on a subscription-based model, and three different newsletters make up our flagship products. Readers can access our Brazil Weekly and Daily Briefings, and our Latin America Weekly newsletter for less than $200 a year. Newsletters are delivered to subscribers' inboxes from Monday to Friday, and readers can also access online archives of content on our site. Premium subscribers have access to all newsletters, while standard subscribers only receive the Brazil Weekly. The digestible format guides readers through important stories, with key topics organized in an easy-to-follow sequence, and plenty of links to longer pieces, when the reader wants to delve deeper. As well as the content curation that is typical to newsletters, The Brazilian Report’s newsletters provide timely analysis of the most relevant regional news stories, illustrated with resources, such as interactive charts and exclusive interviews. All visitors can access the following free content Podcast One of our longest-standing media products is our weekly Explaining Brazil podcast, in which we pick apart an important topic every Wednesday — either a major developing news story or an evergreen discussion on Brazilian history or society. Videos We produce weekly videos regarding social, tech, or environmental issues, which have proven to be our most engaging topics for this format. Video links to our Youtube channel can be found at the bottom right of our web page. At the end of each video, we include a call to action, with recommended reading pertaining to the topic linked to an article on our main website. Live blogs Our Insider blog is written for a highly qualified audience with a keen interest in politics. We give a brief overview of political news, hoping to convince readers to become paid members if they desire more in depth information. Last year, we also launched a LatAm live blog with the same objective with Latin American news. Cartoon Last but not least is our weekly cartoon, published every Thursday. Each week, we take a light-hearted look at a contemporary issue in the Brazilian news. We also link to several related articles on our site. With an online-only news site, visibility matters. We must be among the first results on Google, so search engine optimization is key. The use of links and backlinks is part of our SEO strategy, which has been a cornerstone of our output since day one. Using incisive keyword techniques, we are able to get our stories to more and more people globally, without compromising on quality. For almost any search engine term related to news in Brazil, The Brazilian Report is nearly always on the first page of results. As design matters a lot, the website's design has been updated several times over the past five years, always incorporating improvements aligned with best market practices and trends. We pay particular attention to the homepage as the first page visitors land on. First impressions matter, and the homepage is a deal breaker if not strategically thought out — something we wanted to avoid. We have recently focused on the newsletter reader experience. A very clear layout showcases our recent newsletters with the five last available issues. By clicking on one issue, that newsletter is on full screen, with access to recent issues along the left of the screen. For any of our products, either newsletters or articles, if you are not yet a member, a banner/ form will invite you to try one of our plans. With 60 percent of our audience consuming our articles and newsletters on desktop and accessing our content during business hours (the other 40 percent tune in on their phones), we needed an ergonomic interface adaptable for any screen. This would be vital for our emailing strategy. Having a good user experience for all content formats allows us to reach all types of audiences. We browsed a dozen media outlet websites to deepen our understanding of media UX and to hone our design towards a functional and aesthetically pleasing result. We have opted for three main components to design our website: First, dynamic colors — green, yellow, and light gray — with modern fonts to draw attention to essential elements. Second, a busy but clear and organized layout, with the color yellow for new visitors, to lead them to conversion. Accessing our website, readers find our main products to the left but also in the top left corner — these are articles, newsletters, and podcasts. In the top right corner, at the same height as those three key elements, you will find our call to action to check our subscription plans. Starting on the left: by clicking on each category you will find the latest issues of each of those products. By clicking our plans page on the right, readers are offered the different memberships available, along with other products such as our eBooks and reports. Scrolling down this offer page reveals testimonials from our readers and listeners, followed by the reasons to subscribe and the technical questions users may have regarding subscriptions. On the homepage, a menu bar presents a variety of article sections. Passing a cursor over these categories, shows a selection of the latest articles in each. Also, for specific articles, such as special investigations, we offer a different and memorable long-read multimedia experience, for example a darker background color and larger font size. While scrolling those articles, the reader will be presented with videos, infographics, audio, etc. We considered the 40 percent of our audience who consume our content on mobile and tablets. As our media outlet is niche (focusing on one country and its surrounding region), we decided against investment in an expensive app. The functionalities we required would have cost around USD200,000, a budget that we preferred to allocate to expanding our team. It was too difficult to forecast the efficiency of such an app investment. Instead, we opted for a halfway solution, creating a unique version of our website for mobile interface. The design is very similar to an app and has all the same functionalities. The main difference is that no software download is necessary. Simply enter our website’s URL or create a shortcut on your mobile phone to access our content. What started out as a two-person operation is now a newsroom with nine full-time journalists and a network of contributors. |
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The Brazilian Report |
