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How start-up local newspaper The Baltimore Banner uses an app as a statement of intent

The Baltimore Banner launched in June 2022, with a mission to fill a gap in local news reporting in Maryland. Funded by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, the  non-profit faced an uphill battle to serve its audience with limited resources and an untested brand. But – with a flexible app strategy – it is making headway.

Sentiment around news apps seems to be cyclical. I’ve been reporting on their highs and lows for over a decade at this point, but it’s fair to say that we’re on the upswing in terms of optimism around the apps.

Huge, international titles including the NYT and Guardian have proved the value of news apps (not to mention their complementary puzzle and cooking apps) for sections of their audiences. Push notifications have become part-and-parcel of the news consumption habit for those readers, and deep dives into the app a few times a day have become the norm. These titles use the app as a selling point for subscriptions and memberships, and while it’s not often the top of the funnel for potential supporters an app can be the clincher for readers hovering over the ‘subscribe’ button.

The scale of those news outlets means the app is guaranteed to be a valuable part of a subscription for enough of their audiences to be viable. But smaller titles – particularly in local journalism – are still grappling with old issues around news apps.

Discovery, product development, creating stickiness… these are the issues for news apps I’ve been writing about for years.

But, despite those challenges, the non-profit newspaper the Baltimore Banner launched its app extremely quickly into its lifecycle. Just over two years into its journey, with 50,000 supporters, the app is proving to be integral to its mission, as its vice president of product Eric Ulken explains to The Publisher Podcast.

Deliberate choice of channels

In the UK a number of startup local newsbrands have gone newsletter-first, avoiding the need to invest in a modern site and associated platforms. Some, like Mill Media, have then launched limited-run print products. By contrast, the Banner has used its capital to create digital products that its leadership team believes appeal to its Maryland audience. Ulken says: “We have a generous runway from a local philanthropist who has basically bootstrapped us for a period of time, but then we’re going to need to stand on our own, and without a print product or without any kind of sort of other thing to support us.”

He says that focusing on likely sources of reader revenue first and foremost led the team to launch the website, and the app followed very shortly after: “My first question was, why an app? Why so soon? Why not get the web right first?

“But I think the app play turned out to be really smart, because apps have become sort of table stakes for news organisations, especially subscription-driven news organizations today. I think there’s an expectation among some users that we deliver a very smooth, streamlined reading experience on a mobile device that… puts the user experience front and centre.”

Purpose and push notifications

Apps, by their very nature, are an active means of engaging audiences. News outlets can use push notifications to begin a dialogue of sorts with readers on their mobile devices, initiating engagement instead of passively waiting for the user to visit them. Ulken believes that, while it’s early days, the Banner is finding the sweet spot for audiences looking to stay informed in real-time.

He explains: “We have just released some functionality in the app that enables users to sort of customize their push notifications. They’re not being bombarded with everything that we publish, but rather, have the ability to say, ‘you know, I’m interested in these geographies or in these topics. Let me sort of quiet the noise a little bit and just focus on the things that I’m interested in’.”

He believes that functionality is creating habits among its users, who come to associate the push notification with relevant information tailored to their needs. That, in turn, creates the ‘stickiness’ required for the app to become a regular part of users’ lives.

Ulken says: “I don’t really, frankly, care how long people spend in the app, as long as they are regularly using it. That is a metric that is actually more important than time spent, because it suggests a top-of-mind presence.”

Audience priorities and other apps

Over the past few years there have been many thousands of words written on the effectiveness of the NYT’s games app. By launching a secondary app that nevertheless confers brand value back to Times, the newspaper is keeping users within its ecosystem even when they are not reading its news and opinion.

Ulken acknowledges the sense of that approach for a storied international newspaper but argues that games are not a huge priority for the Banner’s local audience: “I think one of the questions is ‘what can we do that people aren’t already getting through the New York Times games and puzzles app or other similar experiences that are, frankly, better funded?’”

He notes that the Banner initially launched with a web games section on the site, but that it did not perform as well as hoped and was therefore killed off. Instead, he says, the team is focused on providing the news and information that its audience members tell the Banner team they want.

That qualitative feedback, he believes, is just as important as the quantitative data-gathering for establishing what development priorities should be: “We have been doing some qualitative research where we’ve talked to subscribers, in particular about their experience with with the Banner, and I think we’ve gotten some good insight there on sort of what constitutes satisfaction. But that’s hard to to read from the tea leaves of site analytics and app analytics, to be honest.”

Staying power and commitment

Perhaps the most interesting part of my chat with Ulken, however, was when he spoke about a completely intangible benefit of the app for the Banner. As the paper is staking its future in large part on reader revenue, getting people to pay relies on convincing them it will be worth their while in the long-term. And one primary consideration for people is whether the outlet they choose to support will still be here a year from now.

As a result Ulken says that the app is the Banner planting its flag and declaring its intention to last. An app confers the sense of solidity, of longevity, that a website on its own does not. He explains: “The app, I think, in many ways has a brand value in the sense that it conveys to people that we are a serious organisation that has some staying power and is investing in a platform that is going to be around for a while.”

It is a necessary reminder that a focus on audience need goes beyond simply providing them what they want in the here-and-now. App strategy is in large part about delivering news and information in a manner that keeps audiences engaged, but it would be myopic to say that is all it is. Instead, as Ulker and the Baltimore Banner team are proving, app strategy is an extension of a wider approach to super serving audiences what they really need, when they need it, in the form that is most convenient.

There are plenty more insights from my chat with Ulken in the full podcast, so if you have any interest in this unique case study please check it out.

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