11 news orgs grow audience through election funnel training

By Kathryn DeHart

Every election year, outlets allocate significant resources to covering local, state and federal races that impact their communities.

“If you’re going to be putting in all this time and effort and work, you want to make sure someone is going to see it, use it, find it useful,” Erica Perel, former director of the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, said.

That was the idea behind Perel and Growth Strategist Nation Hanh’s Elections Funnel training series through the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media.

From February to September 2024, Perel, Hahn and audience growth coaches worked with 11 newsrooms to create tactical strategies for audience engagement and growth throughout their election coverage.

The participating newsrooms included:

The audience funnel is a way to visualize the different level of commitment audience members have to a media outlet, Perel said. There are different strategies for each level of the funnel that work to serve an audience’s needs, but also work to show value to audience members.

Perel said that applying funnel strategies to election coverage gives newsrooms a chance to connect readers with vital information, but also help newsrooms develop and grow their audiences.

The driving question was how newsrooms could use the moment of the election to create a trusting relationship with new audiences.

“Our newsrooms are smaller and more resource constrained than they ever have been in the past, and there’s going to be this huge use of resources, and it seemed to me that it would be very important that that the newsrooms pay as much attention to how to make sure their journalism reaches their intended audiences, as much as the coverage itself,” Perel said.

The Workshop

Over the course of eight months, participating newsrooms attended two in-person events in February and May, as well as a remote session in September, with the cohort and one-on-one zoom calls with program coaches: Eric Frederick and Sarah Day Owen Wiskirchen.

Each newsroom was asked to identify challenges that they wanted to address with their election coverage and create measurable goals.

Throughout the training, newsrooms shared their own progress with the cohort to track their growth and successes. They shared successful strategies and relevant data points as proof of growth.

Here’s a snapshots of successes from a few teams in the program:

Border Belt Independent

The Border Belt Independent’s goal was to become an essential election news source for Black voters in Bladen, Columbus, Robeson and Scotland counties.

Editor Sarah Nagem said the decision to focus on Black voters in their coverage is the result of large political shifts across the state.

Nagem said the outlet chose to track their goals by measuring how many stories the outlet published centering on Black voters.

Since the outlet is young, Nagem said they are still trying to understand their audience and how to meet their needs. This was a challenge in boosting content for the outlet via Facebook, as well as receiving feedback, Nagem said.

“I think what worked is really just taking the time to slow down and say, ‘Let’s focus on a group of people whose voices often are ignored during election cycles,” Nagem said.

The main takeaway for BBI, Nagem said, is to remain reader focused.

One standout project: BBI’s Election vertical, which is featured in the organization’s banner on its website.

Carolina Public Press

Frank Taylor, Carolina Public Press’ executive director, said his organization’s goal was to reconnect with their audience after organizational restructuring. Taylor said the organization wanted to focus on attracting new readers and creating a higher volume of high-quality stories.

Taylor said the program also helped the organization better utilize SEO tactics and newsletters to attract subscribers. Not only did they see value out of the program — they even hired one of the consultants, Wiskirchen, to do further work on audience development work.

However, following Hurricane Helene’s devastation in Western North Carolina, Taylor said the outlet had to consider its coverage priorities.

“We’re committed to covering elections. We had been committed all year. We didn’t walk away from it. We had really good election coverage during Helene,” Taylor said. “But it was clear the elections were no longer the number one thing on people’s minds in the same way. So we adjusted, but we definitely kept elections the next most important thing.”

Taylor said the outlet decided to go to mountain communities and report on voting in the aftermath of Helene — just one way the outlet strategically selected stories to provide audiences with in-depth reporting on elections.

The outlet also created multiple frequently asked questions pages and released investigative projects ahead of election day, Taylor said.

One particular way the outlet connected with its audience with election coverage was a three-part investigative series focusing on the correlation between pay and the loss of personnel in North Carolina elections officials.

“’It’s not about trying to do what everybody else already does pretty well. It’s about trying to do some other things that are better,” Taylor said.

One standout project: Elections Brain Drain, the three-part investigative series that explores the decline of experienced NC county elections directors.

The News and Observer

Politics Editor at the News and Observer Jordan Schrader said the N&O’s challenge was to reach first-time voters, specifically college students, with election coverage.

To reach this goal, the N&O hosted multiple events on college campuses throughout the Triangle area.

The N&O partnered with campus media organizations — The Technician at North Carolina State University, The Daily Tar Heel at UNC Chapel Hill — for a zine making event featuring the campus media’s voter guides. At North Carolina Central University, the N&O recorded a live podcast episode of “Under the Dome.”

[RELATED: Read more about the zine creation process at UNC and NC State]

Additionally, Schrader said the outlet posted TikTok videos answering voter questions about voting and organized its annual candidate questionnaires on a separate landing page.

To track the success of its election coverage, Schrader said the outlet focused on analytics like conversion rates and page views. Schrader said that while tracking the success of the campus events was difficult, he felt like they were well attended.

“We need to meet people where they are if, if we’ve got good stuff, but nobody’s reading it, then, or at least certain groups aren’t reading it, then, we need to change where we’re putting it or how we’re getting it out there to to make sure it’s a good scene,” Schrader said.

Standout project: The engagement events with NC college students: Zine project held at UNC and NC State; Under the Dome recording at NC Central University.

The Current GA

The Current GA’s Managing Editor Susan Catron said their organization’s goal was to reach first time voters, including young voters and voters new to Coastal Georgia.

“Our goals were to reach people and encourage them to vote, because that is their voice,” Catron said. “We encourage them to get good information and to vote.”

One particularly successful way the outlet reached this audience was via social media platforms like Reddit.

“Reddit has also been a place where, if you come in with the right question, and that’s phrasing the questions and getting the prompts right so that they can pass them out,” Catron said. “You get pretty thoughtful answers.”

The outlet also created a text line to gather sources and provide people with information if they requested it, Catron said.

Catron said her goal with election coverage was to shift focus from the outlet’s page views and instead pay better attention to time spent on site.

Catron said the outlet’s election content performed well and reached the outlet’s visibility goals, but she said most of the outlet’s election coverage was focused on gaining new audiences.

Over the past six months, Catron said the outlet’s social media engagement has increased significantly, something she attributes to their election coverage.

One standout project: A comprehensive and interactive election guide for coastal GA residents

Triad City Beat

Sayaka Matsuoka, Triad City Beat’s managing editor, said the outlet’s challenge was election coverage failing to meet a critical mass of voters.

Matsuoka said to address this issue, the outlet shifted its election coverage from focusing on candidates to issues and people.

The outlet sought out reader feedback and priorities, something Matsuoka said she thinks made readers more willing to engage with their content.

Earlier this year, Matsuoka said the outlet sent out a survey to readers to find out what topics and races they were most interested in, as well as their preferences in receiving content.

One way TCB centered voters’ voices ahead of elections was through multiple “reverse town halls,” events where candidates got to ask voters questions about their priorities and experiences.

[RELATED: Read more about Triad City Beat’s Reverse Town Halls]

“A lot of people who both came to the event, the candidates and then the panelists themselves, came to really enjoy that event because they’ve never participated or seen anything like it before, and they appreciated the fact that it was putting voters at the center of the conversation,” Matsuoka said.

Besides tracking readership throughout the election season, Matsuoka said TCB began an elections newsletter that performed very well.

The newsletter began before the primaries and ended after the general election, Matsuoka said. She said they tracked the newsletter’s success through message open analytics and online readership numbers.

“I think the key takeaway is that people really like reporting and events and things that speak directly to them and center them,” Matsuoka said.

One standout project: Triad City Beat’s Reverse Town Hall engagement events