Incentivizing thoughtful, effortful engagement over skimming is an opportunity to repair and build trust with audiences

The realities of the modern media landscape are such that newsrooms need to perform a balancing act between the conflicting considerations of open access (civics) and financial sustainability (economics). 

By incentivizing thoughtful, effortful engagement over skimming, newsrooms have an opportunity to repair and build trust with their audiences. In the era of not only AI-powered disinformation but AI slop, whatever a newsroom can do to improve the quality of audience engagement online becomes increasingly critical, prioritizing better news literacy and more deliberate, quality civic engagement.

What do the following have in common?

• The launch of Google’s AI-based summary tool is expected to siphon traffic from the content’s original site, leaving newsrooms scrambling to find alternative strategies to attract readers 

• Big Tech’s social media platforms’ de-emphasis of news publishers’ articles constricts their channels of distribution.

• The arrival of increasingly high-quality AI-generated content now competing for the same attention as traditional newsrooms intensifies the already fierce competition.

Answer? They all help create an environment in which newsrooms are forced to innovate their way out of financial shortfalls and general uncertainty. 

Grants and philanthropy are a lifeline to many, but overreliance on these funds leaves newsrooms vulnerable to the shifting whims of funders as opposed to readers’ needs. Newsrooms must seek sustainability from internal efforts like diversifying revenue streams.

The benefits of deeper engagement with content

There’s mounting evidence that engaged time spent on content correlates to a sustained increase in audience loyalty. In fact, only the most engaged 5-10% of the audience become paying subscribers.

DigInThere allows newsrooms to leverage comprehension quizzes to incentivize audiences toward more thoughtful engagement with their content. Readers intrigued by this prospect might end up staying on for longer and consuming the content thoroughly enough such that they can pass the quiz successfully.

Benefits to diverse newsroom revenue models

While there are a number of revenue models (e.g. brand partnerships, sponsorships, e-commerce, etc.), here we focus on subscription, ad-supported, and membership use with DiginThere.  Note: These models exist in different flavors, and some outlets may even use a combination of them.

Regardless of outlets’ specific business model, DigInThere can be implemented to encourage a deeper, more meaningful engagement to the mutual benefit of the newsroom and its audience by helping them build trust and cultivate loyalty. Here’s how: 

Subscription

Because readers need to pass comprehension quizzes for the content to participate, they need to have access to the full content. Therefore, the prospect of earning perks may give readers a reason to subscribe, essentially enhancing the value of a subscription in the eyes of audience members.

Metric to watch: (New subscribers who took a quiz) / (New subscribers not taking a quiz) = Benefit to subscriber conversion

Also worth watching: How much do quizzes help slow audience attrition? Compare the relative number of subscription cancellations among those who habitually took quizzes to non-quiz takers.

Ad-supported

In order to succeed, quiz takers will need to spend more time on the news site. This translates to elevated levels of engagement on the site which could be factored into the ad bidding process, ultimately increasing the value of the newsroom’s advertising space. To drive the argument home, we should be tracking how click-through rates on ads correlate with quiz-taking activity.

Metric to watch: (Ad click-through rate among quiz takers) / (Ad click-through rate among those not taking quizzes) = Benefit to click-through rate

Membership

While not a benefit exclusive to the membership model, deeper engagement with the content helps strengthen the bond between newsrooms and their audiences, paving the way for sustained loyalty. This approach typically builds heavily on participation and community, some aspects of which incentive-tied comprehension quizzes could help maintain.

Metric to watch: (New memberships among quiz takers) / (New memberships among non-quiz takers) = Benefit to membership conversion

Next steps

We are looking for newsrooms interested in trying DiginThere for our upcoming beta launch. If you’re interested or just want updates on DigInThere, sign up below. You can also schedule an office hours appointment to learn more. You can also email info@diginthere.com with any questions.

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Cite this article

Csernatony, Zoli; and Amihere, Dana (2024, Oct. 7). How enhanced audience engagement helps sustain newsrooms. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/how-enhanced-audience-engagement-helps-sustain-newsrooms/