Funke Mediengruppe recently entered into a collaboration with Visiolink who are going to deliver digital platforms for their 12 regional newspapers. Their enhanced digital focus is one step of the way towards becoming the leading regional media group in Germany.
The German media powerhouse employs about 1500 journalists and 4500 media experts all over Germany. They distribute regional newspapers in Berlin, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Thuringia while also being one of the major players in the magazine business.
“At FUNKE Mediengruppe we aim every day to deliver premium local and regional journalism to our readers – whether they prefer to read our printed newspapers, our websites or in the ePaper. Especially in the ePaper, we have seen a steady growth over the past years with a reach of more than 93.000 readers at the end of 2018,” says Christian Ullrich, Head of Mobile Apps & ePaper at Funke Digital - the digital sub-department of Funke Mediengruppe.
Collaborating with Visiolink
Funke Mediengruppe’s increased digital focus led them to a crossroad where they had to decide on a future business partner to handle their distribution of digital newspapers, Christian Ullrich tells:
“None of the ePaper solutions we have been using until now managed to meet our requirements for a premium reading experience, a high-performance, scalable back-end integration and future-oriented analysis and marketing features. The use and maintenance of the different solutions was comparatively expensive, and the heterogenic processes prevented an efficient, strategic advancement of the ePaper. But unlike other suppliers, Visiolink fulfilled all our requirements to a good or a very good extent.”
Funke Mediengruppe recently launched their first four out of a total 19 ePaper apps, and Christian Ullrich has been very happy about the cooperation with Visiolink so far.
“After having decided to go with Visiolink, it took us just three months to introduce new ePaper solutions with four daily newspapers in Berlin and Thüringen. In every phase of the project, we could safely rely on the close and trusting cooperation with Visiolink. It was incredibly fun to work together with such kind and competent contact persons,” he says.
Working together with such a huge media company as Funke Mediengruppe undoubtedly sets high demands on its business partners, and Visiolink was put through thorough testing by the German media giant.
“Having 19 ePapers, 144 regional editions and more than 2.000 pages produced daily, a seamless integration of the ePaper into our production processes is crucial for us. In cooperation with Visiolink, we did not only realize an extremely fast and stable processing of our content but also a unique process control that gives us a quick processing status of our publications already in the evening,” Christian Ullrich explains.
Future ePaper goals
In 2019, FUNKE Mediengruppe is going to implement the new Visiolink solution in their remaining locations - Hamburg, Essen and Braunschweig, and Christian Ullrich is sure that the collaboration with Visiolink will strengthen the digital editions in terms of new features and insights about the product.
“Our main focus will be to ensure an efficient use of the new solution for all processes – from the supplement management to customer care – in all locations. The standard Visiolink solution offers many interesting functionalities – from push campaigns to interstitials and crossword puzzles. We will test many of these, and in case of success, introduce them on group-level."
"Last but not least, through the integrations with Google Analytics, Visiolink gives us thorough insight into the use of our content for the first time. Many colleagues can’t wait to see how many times specific articles are being read. The new analysis dashboards are surely going to be introduced in every location from the very beginning," Christian Ullrich concludes.
If you want to experience Funke Mediengruppe's Visiolink based ePaper apps then you can find them in App Store and Google Play Store by searching for Berliner Morgenpost, Thüringer Allgemeine, Ostthüringer Zeitung and Thüringische Landeszeitung (TLZ).
