One very specific readership use case I’ve been seeing lately is around merger and acquisitions (M&As). We’ve seen a handful of our customers look at readership data as they evaluate acquisition targets and/or prepare to announce M&A activity.
It’s big news and sometimes propels a brand into a new market. Navigating that as a communications team isn’t as simple as just creating a monster media list. I’ve compiled a list of 3 ways our customers lean on readership data in the world of M&As.
1. Uncovering brand perception for your acquisition target
When acquiring a company, we see some of our customers do a readership analysis to understand what people are really reading about their acquisition target and perception around the brand.
What topics are driving readership? Are there any article or brand sentiment trends to be aware of? Seeing readership trends and uncovering brand perception helps comms teams understand any brand risks or opportunities around the acquisition and start planning for messaging around an announcement.
2. Understanding the business and industry media landscape
Sometimes M&A activity happens within a single industry, but oftentimes brands find strategic M&A targets to help grow or expand their business in a specific way. This could mean acquiring a technology that’s tangentially related to their current line(s) of business. When that’s the case, seeing readership helps some of our customers understand a new industry and topic from a media perspective.
Gaining a full understanding of what topics, reporters, and publications drive readership for the brand, its broader industry, and similar acquisitions in the space (and sentiment around them) can help comms teams create a comprehensive media strategy designed to attract the most readers for them and their acquisition.
3. Merging brand narratives over time
We see some of our customers compare their own readership with the M&A target to see what topics are resonating with both brands. Seeing what reports and topics perform best for both can uncover what narratives will easily resonate with specific audiences.
Moving forward, teams can see what narratives they can adopt as the brands come together and what narratives might be better left behind.