News sites move toward 'dayparting'
Traffic to all news sites drops off after the work day ends -- but research shows that consumers do go online at night from home, just not for news. According to Minnesota Opinion Research Inc. (MORI), online users want news in the morning, entertainment content in the early evening, and shopping and classifieds information at night. So news sites are increasing practicing "dayparting" -- promoting different editorial and advertising content during different segments of the day to better serve readers' interests.
Among the sites using dayparting strategies, according to Editor & Publisher:
• LJWorld.com, the Web site for the (Lawrence, Kan.) Journal-World, promotes features in the evenings that were buried in the morning paper. "We rewrite the headlines and generally try to add more character and fun to them," general manager Rob Curley told E&P.
• In the evenings, Milwaukee's Journal Interactive replaces branding-oriented retail ads with call-to-action ones.
• After 6 p.m. MST, The Arizona Republic rebrands azcentral.com, its Web site, as azcentral@night, with heavy emphasis on entertainment stories while news is relegated to a secondary status. The evening site also emphasizes travel deals, shopping guides, and classified ads since studies show online shopping increases at night.
TIP: For sites interested in using dayparting strategies, Mike Coleman, manager for site presentation/audience development, suggests that news sites hire evening home page editors who are young and hip.
• More on dayparting from CyberJournalist.net
Apr 28, 2003 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)
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