Customizing Audience Experiences For Bigger Impact

The Public Radio Incubation Lab launched with the goal of “bringing transformative ideas to life in public media,” with equal emphasis on how we set about that work as well as what that work eventually produces. The first Lab team is tackling the question of how to leverage digital scale to drive value to NPR Member stations.

Previously, the team shared a prototype and feedback for a tool that NPR Member stations could use to learn more about NPR’s digital audiences, access more, high-quality leads and find best practices about communicating with different audiences.

More recently, the Lab team spent a lot of time thinking about the audience experiences on NPR.org, and how we could leverage what we know about users to drive them toward valuable engagement with their Member station.

One of the primary mandates of the first rotation of the Incubation Lab was to consider how to leverage the relatively massive scale that NPR has on its national digital platforms. That scale is incredibly apparent on NPR.org: The monthly traffic to NPR’s site, even in a major market, often surpasses the traffic to that market’s Member station’s site a few times over.

But even though NPR.org draws a large audience — upwards of 40 million unique visitors per month — there’s very little we know about any of them. In fact, that was a reoccurring theme we found throughout our research: NPR’s site doesn’t ask much of its users, especially when compared to what other publishers have implemented (e.g., customized content suggestions, aggressive asks for newsletter subscriptions, using sign-on as a key to unlock more content).

Potential engagement milestones on NPR.org, in the context of the Grow/Know/Engage/Activate framework. | Michael Chaplin and Jonathan Butler/NPR and VPR

As we discussed these challenges further, we circled around the framework of the “Grow/Know/Engage/Activate” user journey — an idea that’s pretty well known within public media. We used a pyramid to illustrate how that framework that might look like for users on NPR.org specifically, where we’re identifying key actions along the user journey, and thinking of those as milestones in the path to membership.

With all this in mind, it was clear to the Lab team that part of our recommendation should include smarter messages and experiences for our visitors on NPR.org. How might we change the site to coax our readers and listeners to progress up that pyramid?

Part of an early storyboard that considered how a series of custom audience experiences might exist on NPR’s site.

To answer that question, we created many prototypes. (You can see some of them, in the context of that Grow/Know/Engage/Activate framework, here.)

But this concept is easier to understand if we look at it from the perspective of an NPR.org user. Just by considering an audience member’s frequency of use — one of numerous parameters we could use to tailor user experiences on the site — we can be more strategic about which actions we’re prompting a user to take, and when/how we ask them.

Sam’s about to visit NPR.org for the first time. | Brooke Cagle/Unsplash

Meet Sam, Our NPR.org Visitor

This is “Sam.”

Let’s imagine they’re about to visit NPR.org for the first time. But, unlike the site today, NPR.org is able to encourage Sam to take certain actions based on what they do on the site.

Let’s see how Sam’s experience on NPR.org can change based on their usage and habits.

Sam Reads Their First NPR.org Story

Custom messaging (highlighted at the bottom of this image) on story pages encourages new users to engage with another story.

Sam starts by reading a story on NPR.org. Custom messaging encourages them to engage with just one more piece of content.

This helps Sam start to build a mental model of NPR as a source they can turn to.

Sam Meets Their Member Station

NPR.org can ask return users to confirm or select a different Member station, once we know they have a better sense of who NPR is.

As Sam gets more comfortable with NPR during additional visits, the site can introduce them to NPR’s representative in their own backyard, by getting them to confirm or select their member station.

Sam Discovers New Content Touch Points

As users engage with even more content (and make even more return visits), NPR.org can ask them to subscribe to the right newsletter at the right time.

With even more return visits, we can see if Sam is interested in engaging with us on other platforms — for instance, would we be welcome in their inbox?

Sam Is Primed To Make A Donation

The site can ask a dedicated NPR.org user to donate when specific parameters are met.

And, as Sam continues to return to our platform (engaging with content, specifying a Member station, and/or subscribing, for instance), we can find the right time — and use the right messaging and experience — to ask them to make a donation to their member station.

Tying It All Together

And so, when we look back at the work of the first rotation of the Incubation Lab, we have a concept with two components: custom audience experiences on NPR.org, and the Lead Engagement Tool for stations. But, when those two elements are combined, you can really get a sense of how our work could drive valuable leads, data and even new members to stations across the network.

The Lead Engagement Tool can use all of the custom messages and experiences NPR.org delivered to Sam to gather and share data about Sam (and the millions of other users on NPR.org) with our Member station partners. And then, station teams can further leverage that information to engage with users and potential donors in their markets.

What do you think of the idea of custom audience experiences on NPR.org? And, does our concept make sense when the station and audience components come together? Comment here, or send us a note at incubationlab@npr.org!

Michael Chaplin contributed to this post.