1. Strategies to Improve Digital Outreach & Increase Audience Engagement Michele Givens, Publisher & General Manager Editorial Projects in Education, Inc. mgivens@epe.org

2. Today, we’ll cover Context for our work to expand audience & increase engagement using analytics Pilot partnership between reporter & analytics team Scaling work via Analytics Accelerator 1 2 3

3. Today, we’ll cover Context for our work to expand audience & increase engagement using analytics Pilot partnership between reporter & analytics team Scaling work via Analytics Accelerator 1 2 3

4. We’re a media organization Legacy B-to-B non-profit newspaper publisher 15+ years of cultural change in shift to digital Multi-platform (web, live & virtual events, broadcast, print) 60%+ revenue digital Web business model: paid content (metered model) & advertising

6. Today, we’ll cover Context for our work to expand audience & increase engagement using analytics Pilot partnership between reporter & analytics team Scaling work via Analytics Accelerator 1 2 3

7. Pilot partnership Analytics team partnered with reporter who writes for Digital Education news blog Developed 5 KPIs 1.PVs (desktop & mobile) 2.Registrations 3.Visits 4.Twitter visits 5.Google visits Goal: Use analytics data to improve the performance of his blog posts

8. +42% +47% Page Views Registrations Results of reporter & analytics team pilot partnership

9. Improvements to other KPIs

10. Benchmarking results to our similar blogs Digital EducationBlog ABlog BBlog CBlog D Page Views+42%-18%-16%-29%-57% Visits+42%-19%-14%-28%-57% Twitter Visits+35%-29% -30%-55% Google Visits+35%-4%+1%+41%-3% Registrations+47%-20%-9%-21%-55% Mobile Phone PV’s+52%-2%-27%-43%-62%

11. . What we did: Content Strategies Publish more consistently Make more-informed decisions about what to cover Offer incremental coverage & clustered content on big stories Sprinkle in some fun Use more photos Make better use of archives Better leverage evergreen content

12. What we did: Back-end & SEO Strategies Write search engine-friendly headlines & URLs Highlight related stories Update blog categories Follow best practices on hyperlinking, keywording & tagging Highlight special reports, explainers, key stories Coordinate with social strategy

13. This work wasn’t top down, it was bottom up. I’d ignored a lot of emails (on SEO, etc.), but then I got data about my own work and I was coached on strategies I could use today. (My editor) also gave me flexibility and encouragement to experiment.” Ben Herold Education Week Staff Writer, at long-range editorial planning meeting

14. Today, we’ll cover Context for our work to expand audience & increase engagement using analytics Pilot partnership between reporter & analytics team Scaling work via Analytics Accelerator 1 2 3

15. Analytics Accelerator Objectives: Replicate & scale success of Digital Education pilot partnership Increase audience, engagement around other news blogs Build newsroom analytics capacity, skills & understanding of how reporters can grow audience, increase engagement with their work What it is: Rotating team of 1-2 reporters who individually partner with analytics team for 3 months

16. Analytics Accelerator Early results: In early 2015, 2 reporters, each with their own blog, entered the Accelerator Work led to combined growth of 77% in page views and 27% in registrations Next 2 reporters now in the Analytics Accelerator; other reporters waiting in line

17. Some Takeaways Unique approach needed to convince journalists that analytics could benefit their work & serve audience Personalized, small- scale approach good first step Most powerful way to encourage adoption? Word-of-mouth Building audience and engagement requires cross-organization, multi-pronged approach consistent, diligent focus on best practices

18. Questions? Michele Givens mgivens@epe.org