Newsroom ROI: 3 examples of successful newsroom centered strategies
Many PR folks believe that traffic is the most important metric for their newsroom. However, the success of a site is based on much more than simply attracting a certain number of visitors. High website traffic -although not unimportant- is perhaps the most common myth of all when it comes to measuring newsroom success.
In part 1 of 3, we highlight three successful examples of communications professionals that reshaped their digital strategy with a newsroom focused approach.
1. Curacao Tourist Board
Although Curacao is a well known holiday destination, their PR team does not sit on its laurels. In an effort to make the transition in their marketing efforts towards digital and inbound marketing, the team adopted a newsroom centric approach. Some key indicators of their new strategy being successful are:
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Referral traffic from the newsroom to main website has increased with over 180%.
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Paid search expenditure has been reduced by 20% due to newsroom success.
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The overall bounce rate has decreased to below 20% (Bounce rate metrics for average website = 40.5%).
We are really proud the newsroom quickly appeared as number 7 in our top 10 list of traffic sources. I am more than happy with that.
2. Cook Children's Health Care System
Cook Children's has made its newsroom an online destination for not only parents, but the industry and media alike. In record time, Cook Children's Health Care System gained a large loyal audience with a (visitor returning rate) of over 89%.
Recently, we ran a story on the flu. I was watching the news that evening and I hear the anchor say, “A flu outbreak in Fort Worth.” To my surprise, when I watched the story they reported directly from the content we provided.
The Fort Worth based hospital’s brand journalism strategy has direct bottom line impact as its stories made one Detroit family decide to fly cross country for surgery after reading an impactful story on Checkupnewsroom.com.
Another article that broke readership records -by garnering over one million readers in less than three days- was “7 dangerous Apps that parents need to know.” The article scored very high on reader engagement with over 800 comments and thousands of shares.
3. Marathon Petroleum Corporation
The MPC newsroom launched early 2015 and coincided with the company’s rollout of its first social media activities. The newsroom became instrumental in Marathon’s rapid growth to 3,000 followers on Facebook and 34,000 on LinkedIn.
We had a couple of major news outlets reach out and say, 'Hey, we saw you published that story. Would you mind giving us some information on what it's like to recruit in your industry?’
Social analytics showed that 15-20 percent of the people exposed to a given post followed through to the newsroom where they spent an average of 1.5 minutes reading the article. Additionally, due to the seamless visitor experience between the newsroom and the rest of Marathon’s website, a higher number of visitors than ever before click through to explore the rest of the main site.
PressPage provides an innovative PR software platform for creation of advanced social newsrooms, virtual press centers and online media hubs. It enables brands to publish and distribute rich content, and provides direct insights into the results. PressPage empowers PR professionals by adding efficiency and effectiveness to their daily work routine.
