Online Audience Building Initiatives
Introduction
About the Author
Introduction
This series of case studies showcases both operational excellence and
initiatives that have successfully increase audience for newspaper Web
sites.
IndyMoms Draws Busy Parents with Discussion,
Niche Content
By Rich Gordon
Summary
The Indianapolis Star launched a discussion-oriented Web site and monthly
print publication called IndyMoms, targeting mothers in central Indiana.
In less than six months, the Web site achieved a monthly total of more
than 1 million page views. It has more than 30,000 unique monthly visitors,
including 13,000 registered users. Including all expenses and revenues
for print and online, IndyMoms is profitable.
History of this initiative
 Executives
at the Star, like many newspapers, knew that mothers often don’t
read a daily newspaper because of lack of time or content they found
relevant. We had seen “research study after research study about
how poorly newspapers performed with moms,” said Kevin Poortinga,
the paper’s vice president of product development. When Publisher
Barbara Henry and General Manager Ali Zoibi decided to create a separate
“innovation and development team,” a product for mothers
quickly moved to the top of the list of ideas. Star research indicated
that there were 180,000 women in the Indianapolis market who fit into
the target demographic: ages 25-44, with children 17 and younger.
In late summer of 2006, Poortinga’s team set up an internal focus
group of mothers who worked for the Star and developed a list of requirements
for the Web site. One of the participants was Jennifer Gombach, a brand
manager in the Star’s marketing department. When the Star committed
to launching IndyMoms, Gombach – a mother of two – was appointed
as its first general manager. As editor, the Star hired Epha Riche, a
news design director who was on maternity leave with her second child
when the job was posted. The Star also hired two fulltime sales representatives
for IndyMoms.
The site launched in November 2006.
What the data show
From its launch, traffic to IndyMoms built steadily, reaching more than
1 million page views in March 2007. Since then, page views have increased
slightly. Unique visitors totaled more than 35,000 in July.
How it works
IndyMoms.com doesn’t publish staff-generated content. It simply
allows mothers to talk with one another online. IndyMoms.com does, however,
frequently link to relevant articles on the Star’s Web site. In
print, the glossy magazine publishes a few articles by Star staff members
or a regular freelancer.
A key decision was to hire 10 “discussion leaders” –
moms paid $25 a week to initiate and participate in discussions on the
site, so first-time visitors would find an active community when it launched.
The Star recruited the discussion leaders through notices in the newspaper;
more than 80 applied. Discussion leaders are required to start four new
discussion threads each week, and to post comments on five other threads.
“They often start discussions that are at a higher sophistication
level than some other posters,” Gombach said. “They kind
of set the tone from the get-go.”
While the discussion leaders’ compensation is modest, they get
intangible benefits as well. For one thing, Gombach said, “they
have become friends.” To keep them engaged, Gombach invites them
to the paper regularly to brainstorm ideas for the site, and in July
entertained them in the paper’s suite at a WNBA basketball game.
Riche designs and edits the print magazine and prepares a weekly IndyMoms
email newsletter highlighting what’s new on the site, as well as
events and advertising. The newsletter has about 7,000 subscribers. Between
print editions, she said, the greatest portion of her time is spent monitoring
discussions on the site.
“Twenty-four hours a day we’re trying to keep an eye on
it,” Riche said. “You have to moderate it at night and on
weekends. It kind of never goes away. That has taken some getting used
to.”
 To
post a comment, users must register on IndyMoms. Problems with “trolls”
who post inappropriate comments have been rare, and “we nip those
in the bud as quickly as we can,” Gombach said. More common are
heated discussions on hot-button issues such as whether spanking is appropriate
discipline. The site encourages members to flag inappropriate comment
for review. Topic categories on the site include pregnancy, money, children’s
and mom’s health, crafts, my stories and dozens of others.
“The number one priority is not tolerating personal attacks,”
Riche said. “We want the site to be uplifting and have you feel
welcome and want to come back again and again.”
In cases of personal attacks, “we will delete the post and send
a private message warning them that it’s not tolerated on our site,”
Riche said. “Usually, if it’s ‘in the heat of battle,’
they will write back and apologize.”
From experience, Riche now knows the kinds of topics most likely to
generate heated discussion. When a new discussion thread seems like it
will be controversial, she will make a post herself reminding members
to “respect each other’s opinions,” she said.
“Sometimes I’ll go in and say, ‘OK, everyone, let’s
take a breather. Step away from the computer and think before you type.’
If it’s not something you would say to a room full of people you
just met, you should think twice about posting it to our forum.”
Riche says she intervenes in discussions “a couple times a month.”
She’s also found that IndyMoms members now police the site themselves.
“One mom came on and had a very filthy mouth, and the other moms
called her on it,” Riche said.
“The site is very fluid,” Gombach said. “Some women
will come on here and be very active for a week or a month and then go
away and come back later. Other moms are addicted to it and are on here
all the time.”
One of the most popular areas on the site has posts from mothers looking
for babysitting or day care. These stay live for two weeks before being
removed. “We’ve met so many moms who say, ‘I found
my babysitter on IndyMoms,’ ” Gombach said.
Promotion
The Star promoted IndyMoms on billboards and radio for two weeks per
month over a six-month period after launch. No new money was budgeted
for this marketing campaign; the Star simply used some of the billboards
and radio time already budgeted for newspaper promotion. Since then,
the primary promotion for the site has been in-paper advertising and
an anchored position on the home page of the newspaper’s main Web
site, IndyStar.com. Gombach often uses this space to promote a contest,
such as a ticket giveaway to a popular theater series.
 Gombach
has also hired a “mom squad” whose members go to events that
attract mothers to promote IndyMoms, take photos and create photo galleries
about the events for the Web site. They were recruited through ads in
the Star. Members are paid $15 an hour to attend events such as movie
previews, the State Fair and museum openings. Gombach said the squad
attends about one event per month, with a few more in the summer.
“Viral marketing is huge,” Gombach said. “Someone
started a discussion thread the other day where they’re all going
to start wearing purple ribbons so they can identify each other when
they go to the zoo and the children’s museum.”
Connections to print
The print version of IndyMoms is distributed monthly through direct
mail and racks. Circulation is 15,000 in racks and 45,000 via direct
mail. The mailed copies go to homes with a household income of at least
$60,000, with a mother ages 25 to 44 and children 15 and younger.
The first section of the print edition includes family-oriented calendar
items compiled by the newsroom’s listings desk. Each edition has
a few freelance articles, but much of the content is harvested from the
site itself. For instance, one recent edition included a group of comments
from mothers in response to a question about how much to pay a teenage
babysitter.
Gombach and Riche work with the newsroom (now called the “information
center” at the Star as well as other Gannett papers) to cross-promote
IndyMoms in the Star. For instance, one day in July, the paper’s
business section published a story about a local company that offers
flexible work scheduling, a recruitment edge for mothers. With the article,
the section included an IndyMoms logo and directed readers to visit IndyMoms
to comment. The next day’s newspaper included a similar link with
an article in the Living section on how to save money on groceries.
IndyMoms also helps reporters find sources for print articles relevant
to mothers. For example, Riche might post something on the site asking
for moms willing to talk about breast feeding with a Star reporter.
About the technology
IndyMoms was built in-house at the Star using the open-source Drupal
content management system. Star developers “wanted to use an open-source
framework to leverage communal programming and to get the project online
fast,” Poortinga said. “The other choice was to build it
from scratch, but the timeline didn’t allow for it.” The
Star is hosting IndyMoms.com on a server in the newspaper’s building.
Since the launch of IndyMoms, Gannett has built additional “moms”
sites at other newspapers, some using Drupal and some using Gannett’s
primary online CMS (from Saxotech) and the PHPbb open-source discussion
board system. Other Gannett sites include CincyMoms.com, ArizonaMoms.com,
RenoTahoeMoms.com and MidValleyMoms.com in Salem, Oregon.
 About
revenue
The newspaper would not release specific revenue figures. But Gombach
said Web advertising is “almost sold out each month, so from a
revenue standpoint it’s been extremely successful.” The Web
site is generating almost as much revenue as the print magazine, which
“way exceeded expectations,” Gombach said.
Web advertisers can buy banner and tile ads on a CPM (cost per thousand
impressions) basis. For up to $2,000 per month, businesses can also choose
to sponsor one of the IndyMoms channels: Activities, Behavior, Education
& Development, Entertainment, Food, Health, Motherhood, My Life,
Shopping, Calendar and Kid Pics.
Online advertising is never given away to print advertisers, Gombach
said. But advertisers who buy a print and online package get a 30 percent
rate discount on both. Most of the online advertisers are businesses
that the Star had previous relationships with, while “a substantial
portion” of the print advertisers are small businesses that had
never previously advertised in the Star, Gombach said.
Revenue from print and online advertising consistently exceed the costs
of operating IndyMoms, including compensation for four full-time employees,
technology expenses, freelance pay, and printing and distribution of
the magazine, Gombach said.
What’s next
For IndyMoms, the future goal is “just to continue growing,”
Gombach said. New content categories are being added – for instance,
the site added an area for members to post free classifieds and a new
section on support groups.
Elsewhere at the newspaper, “IndyMoms was a great confidence builder,”
Poortinga said. The success of IndyMoms led to the launch in April of
another niche site, IndyPaws.com, for pet owners. Both sites touch “passion
points,” Poortinga said.
“There are a lot of other projects in the works,” Poortinga
said. “They all focus on audience gaps – mainly, digital
natives who the advertisers want to touch.”
Lessons from the IndyMoms experience
• To foster innovation, consider establishing a separate team to
focus on new initiatives. The Star’s decision to do this “really
sealed the deal” for IndyMoms, Poortinga said. “By doing
that, our team was really able to focus on developing products that grow
audience and grow revenues.”
• Open source content management systems are powerful and quick
to deploy. The capabilities of Drupal were critical to allowing IndyMoms
to launch quickly, Poortinga said.
• When it comes to niche sites, one size doesn’t fit all.
The paper has learned that IndyMoms members mostly want to talk to one
another, while IndyPaws members are more interested in submitting and
sharing photos of their pets, Poortinga said
• To build community, hire community members to get things started.
The IndyMoms discussion leaders were critical to launching the site and
setting a constructive tone, Gombach said.
• Don’t assume your users are technologically sophisticated.
“I was surprised at the number of stay-at-home moms who are not
Internet savvy,” Gombach said. In the first few weeks, she said,
the staff was getting 20 emails a day with often simple questions about
how to use the site.
• Develop a FAQ section. Once Riche created a FAQ area on the site,
the number of questions from users fell to one or two a day, she said.
• Don’t be reluctant to intervene when discussions get heated.
“In the beginning we kind of let things go,” Gombach said.
“Now we’re willing to go in and say, ‘Hey guys, cool
it.’ ”
Relevant links
• IndyMoms.com home page
• IndyMoms “Mom to Mom” discussions
• IndyMoms classified section
• Indianapolis Star Editor Dennis Ryerson writes about IndyMoms
• Wired magazine
article that describes Gannett’s “Information Center”
strategy, including mention of the company’s Cincymoms.com
site in Cincinnati
• IndyPaws home page
• Getting Real, a book recommended by Poortinga describing a “smarter,
faster, easier way to build a successful web-based application”
About the author
Rich Gordon is an associate professor at the Medill School of
Journalism, Northwestern University. Prof. Gordon directs the
school’s graduate program in Web publishing. For the 2006-07
academic year, he has taken on a special assignment as director
of digital media in education. He began his professional career
at the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, and later worked
at The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and The Miami Herald,
where he became the company’s first new media director.
In addition to teaching and research about new media journalism,
Rich has served as a consultant for the Newspaper Association
of America, Pulitzer Newspapers and Grainger Corp. He speaks
regularly to professional and industry groups. |
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