October 04, 2005
Newspaper audience ...
The Newspaper Association of America has a database with a lot of interesting details about audience, both online and in print. This is definitely worth a look in light of our discussions this morning. Let me know if you have questions about any of the stuff on this site ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2005
Week 5: Audience
This week, we'll be looking at one of the most critical elements of running a successful news site: knowing your audience. Your assignment for this week is at the bottom of this post ...
Intro: Whom would you rather be speaking to?
or
Bob Benz, 43, resident of Knoxville, TN, who is interested in alternative country music, literature, dogs
1. Targeting your audience.
Whom does Speakeasy target? The Post? AthensI?
Think about the various audiences in and around OU ...
- Students
- Professors
- Athens residents
- Merchants
- Athletes
- Greeks
- Parents
- Prospective students
It's critical that your site home in on a specific audience. The more general you are, the tougher it is to provide a satisfactory experience to everyone.
Remember: Department store vs. boutique
Fragmentation
Now let's assume we've targeted the audience we're seeking. That's only the beginning of the job. One of the major advantages of the Internet is that it allows you to get very 1-to-1 with your audience. TV and newspapers have a very tough time doing that.
2. The basics: data you can easily glean from the web server
- Server logs
- Hits
- Page views
- IP address
- Referrer URL
- Entry pages, exit pages
- Country
- IP address
- Wikipedia entry on Web analytics
3. Getting personal: Ways to enhance user information
Audience management -- i.e. Tacoda
- Omniture data
- Registration
- Member center
user: bbenz62@yahoo.com
pass: ohiouniversity
Now let's see what it looks like when we start pulling various data points together ...
4. The End Game: What you do with the data
We'll discuss this, and other strategies, during next week's discussion on advertising.
5. Assignment: Pick one of the following:
And analyze the site from an audience perspective.
- Based on what you see, who is the site's intended audience?
- Is the site focused enough? Is it too focused?
- Would you implement registration? Why or why not?
- If you can, find out what analytics software/strategy the site is using and provide a few details about its users.
- Keep in mind that your final project should have an audience component. That's where you'll be discussing your site's audience and the arguments for (or against) partnering to extend or enhance your reach.
Post your answers in the comments to this post. As always, the key is what you say, not how much you say ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 02:49 PM | Comments (12)