It is truly an achievement for a news publisher to be in business for over 100 years. The Dallas Morning News, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, weathered many storms in its existence, including economic downturns and the information revolution. Today, it has one of the largest print circulations of 65,000+ with a social media audience of 1.5M and a print and online audience of 1.8M.
How does the long-serving daily newspaper remain in the top 20 paid circulation newspapers while many of its brethren are forced to fold? By staying agile.
This agility includes adopting new technology that allows the newspaper to engage with its readers in modern ways while delivering the same level of news service the readers expect from the well-respected newspaper.
One way the newspaper initiates and fosters its relationships with its readers is via web push notifications. The Dallas Morning News has been a long-time customer of Pushly – a web push notification platform.
Here are five reasons that the Pulitzer-winning publisher continues to utilize Pushly’s services.
Quality of traffic. In their words, the newspaper would rather receive 10K sessions from Pushly than 100K from Facebook. Users who visit the newspaper via Pushly are genuinely interested in the topics the newspaper covers. They don’t land on the pages of the newspaper by happenstance. They are there because they opted in to receive notifications on topics of interest to them. HOW? Pushly gives readers a choice to opt-in to receive notifications on the topics they are interested in. Pushly’s smart segmentation technology further studies the audience’s behavior and notifies them of the new content, bringing them back to the website.
Deeper engagement. Pushly-driven visitors tend to explore pages beyond the first click. Once they land on the website, they visit other pages with similar topics, spending more time on the publisher’s website. HOW? Pushly’s technology is able to choose topics to show to the users that are similar to the ones that brought them to the website, showcasing more of the publisher’s content and keeping the readers on the website longer.
First-party connection with the site. The publication’s visitors have a direct connection to the site, without an intermediary, such as Facebook or Google. That allows the newspaper to build direct relationships with its readers, increasing engagement and promoting loyalty. First-party connection means first-party data that is then used to further tailor the content to the user, improving the experience they receive from the newspaper. HOW? Pushly’s notifications are displayed in users’ web browsers, enabling users to click on those notifications that lead them straight to the publisher’s site.
Loyalty. The first-party connection promotes brand loyalty because the relationship is built between the user and the website. Curators of content, such as Facebook or Google, display someone else’s content for their users, without directing traffic to the publishers, who do the actual work of writing the content. HOW? Because Pushly interacts with the users on behalf of the publisher, it brings them directly to the publisher’s site. Once it gets users to the publisher, it offers them similar content, keeping the users on the site.
Ad-friendly direct traffic. Advertising platforms like to advertise on the publisher’s site because they know where the traffic is coming from. This traffic becomes a well-segmented audience for the advertisers, delivering better CPMs. HOW? Pushly’s web notifications reach users on their devices and bring them from their browsers directly to the publisher’s site.
Bottom line
Publishers survive because of the revenue they generate. The Dallas Morning News, utilizing web push notifications, has been able to foster a loyal audience that is willing to pay subscription fees. That is because they are able to deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time in the right manner using Pushly’s push notification platform. In ad
dition to the subscription fees, having a loyal audience allows the publisher to generate reliable ad revenue, ensuring the newspaper continues to serve the community in Northern Texas with valuable content.
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