Push notifications in local news delivery: boosting engagement and keeping people informed

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Local media are essential for building an informed society. They provide vital coverage of local issues and events that are often overlooked by national news outlets. However, the traditional approaches to local news delivery, such as television and printed newspapers, are losing their reach.

A shift in news delivery

Gone are the days of early morning newspaper deliveries and learning about local politics or business from the paper with your morning coffee. In today's digital age, people are increasingly getting their news from online sources, such as social media, apps, and websites. In 2024, only 26% of Americans admitted to getting their news from printed newspapers and magazines. The number of newspapers delivered to the reader's door falls annually.

This shift has created a number of challenges for local publishers. On the one hand, social media has made it easier than ever for people to access local news. The number of news pundits online gives them complete access to many points of view and opinions. Readers can now learn more about the world without ever stepping a foot outside their door - and without actual contact with another human being or leaving the social media platform at all.

This makes social media a source of biased, fake, or misinformed news. Furthermore, local publishers face the challenge of getting people to visit their websites. Many people are simply not willing to click on links to news articles on social media.

In 2024 Pew Research study 23% of Americans admitted they prefer to get their information from news websites and apps. 18% chose social media as their preferred news delivery service - a 6% rise from 2023.

Push technology for local newspapers and magazines

Push notifications offer a solution to these challenges, both for website-based magazines and publishers who embraced mobile app technologies as equivalents of traditional newspapers.

Mobile push notifications are messages that are delivered directly to a person's mobile device, even when they are not actively using the app. As The Guardian put it while investigating BBC News approach, mobile push replaces newspaper headlines as the main source of talking points and information.

The other popular kind, web push notifications, are implemented on websites to serve the same purpose for both PC/laptops and mobile devices. They significantly speed up the process of news delivery and help keep desktop users informed on local affairs.

This makes both web and mobile push an ideal way for breaking news delivery and promoting other time-sensitive information. In addition, push notifications can help to build trust between publishers and their audiences. When people know that they can rely on a publisher to deliver accurate and timely information, they are more likely to engage with that publisher's content. From there, they may be swayed into becoming paid customers of premium subscriptions.

Engaging the readers with push notifications

In the United States, the traditional methods of the delivery of local news, such as newspapers magazines and television, are experiencing a decline in reach. Social media has emerged as a popular alternative, with an increasing number of people relying on platforms like Facebook and Twitter for their local news. However, the reliance on social media for news consumption poses the risk of encountering biased or misinformed content.

Source: Pew Research

Social media platforms, which were once valuable tools for publishers to engage with readers on daily basis, now require payment to reach a significant audience. Additionally, the proliferation of AI-generated summaries and bad-faith actors seeking to spread chaos online further complicates the landscape for local news providers.

To combat these challenges, local publishers need to focus on building a loyal readership base by gathering subscribers willing to receive news directly from their websites. This approach ensures that readers have access to accurate and reliable information from a trusted source, which is essential for fostering an informed local community.

Web push notifications for building trust and habits

The first thing to note about web push notifications for local news publishers is the speed and ease of using them in everyday newsroom realities. The implementation alone is easy and doesn't require specialistic IT knowledge. 

Source: CBS News site

Then, there comes the stage of collecting a subscriber base. Your users don't need to leave any personal information to become push subscribers - all they need is to allow notifications delivery in their browser settings. There are multiple ways to encourage opting in - from pop-ups, toggle switches, and bell widgets, to the simplest browser form to keep it easy.

To make the push experience even more personalized and make sure you deliver the news your customers want to get, you can ask them additional questions about their geolocation and preferences. The geotargeting option allows you to send news regarding a specific post code or area. The newly developed Topics option gives your subscribers an opportunity to set their own areas of interest.

Once the subscription forms are set up, it's time to start pushing your notifications. A standard push campaign sent to all your subscribers takes just minutes to prepare and deliver. By adding a Chrome extension to their browsers, media workers can facilitate the process even further. It's a far cry from the logs, ardous process of newspapers and magazines delivery.

Towards a local news personalization

Still, there are some subjects that won't be popular among all the readers. Using segmentation, publishers can divide the subscriber base into smaller groups and address them with more tailored content. This might serve you to

• Deliver match results to people who were browsing the sports section of the portal. 
• Address subscribers living in a particular post code with news coming from their neighborhood (if they allowed geolocation on their browser).
• Inform about local policies concerning specific aspects of living in the area straight to people who were previously interested in articles about particular projects. 

There are even more opportunities to build personalized communications with specific subscribers. Automations allow you to deliver push notifications in reaction to specific behavior of a user on the website (opening or closing an article, logging in to their accounts on the site, beginning the process of paid subscriptions, etc.).

Push notifications for local news alerts delivery

As we're regularly monitoring the push notifications' statistics for PushPushGo's clients, we've noticed two particularly interesting trends worth taking into account: 

• Overall, web push notifications sent by local portals achieve a similar CTR to national services. 
• However, when it comes to the highest CTR for a single push notification, local information concerning a specific area is always in the top-three list of the best delivery.

If you want to see our latest research on web and mobile push performance in the publishing industry, download the report.

Web push notifications are a simple, fast, and reliable way of sustaining a loyal base of returning subscribers for media of every size. If you want to learn more about its possibilities, drop us a line.