A regional daily says it is reaching a “bigger audience than ever before” after recording digital growth of more than 50pc.
North Wales daily The Leader says its Leader Live website attracted an average of 339,081 monthly unique browsers during the January to March period this year, which is up 51.76pc on the same period last year.
The Newsquest-owned Leader has also revealed a monthly average of 1,701,337 pages were read on the website in the same period, representing a year-on-year increase of 55.7pc.
The figures, which have come from Google Analytics, have been welcomed by Newsquest North Wales group editor Susan Perry, pictured.
She said: ““I am proud to say that we are now reaching a bigger audience than ever before.
“Wherever you are, we are there for you, bringing you the most up to date news, as well as breaking news stories and sport for the area.
“Not only are we on sale six days a week in print, we’re online 24/7 and our traffic is growing at a phenomenal rate.”
Nick Fellows, managing director for Newsquest North West and North & Mid Wales, added: “We are delighted with the progress this business has made in the past 12 months, evidenced by the significant increase in engagement across both online and social media channels.
“Alongside our established print readership and digital marketing solutions, local businesses undoubtedly have the best opportunity to reach a local audience.”
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And digital advertising revenue growth in hard cash terms? No mention. Still, as far as clicks go it is good news.
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Typical Newsquest stuff really – jump for joy over getting more website hits while turning a blind eye to the state of the print edition as sales figures continually fall. Believe they’ve got rid of most photographers and sub-editors at the Leader and it shows in the final product.
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Dress it up how you like, it’s celebrating giving your products away for free.
As a commercial boss I knew said many a time” any idiot can give it away ,it takes talent to produce something someone can sell and another person to buy”
Still true today
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Feel sorry for a lot of these editors who’ve been part of a newspaper group before they got taken over by one of the ‘big’ three.
NWM always had a good rep as being a family-owned group that were happy to just make a quid or two but wanted to have newspapers with local officers and a good amount of staff. Many of my old colleagues who found themselves laid off by Trinity often found a good home there.
I don’t know what the situation is there now, but would be amazed if any of the small offices they had in local towns are long for this world.
Audience size just doesn’t grab me at all in these stories, I’d like to know what bounce rate and engagement is. I frequently click on my own local newspaper’s website but rarely stay more than a few seconds as I realise I’m expected to sit through a Santander advert or answer surveys about my favourite toilet bleach. No doubt though I’m still included on some ‘unique vistotors’ list somewhere when the Aqua Di Gio brigade are set loose like wing monkeys to peddle ‘virtual ad space’ to some unsuspecting carpet shop owner, despite me virtually never reading the paper and no longer rating it – at all.
Absolute world away from buying a newspaper/magazine I was willing to invest time, money and effort in. Halcyon days!
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“digital marketing solutions”. Oh dear. Everything is a solution. I guess there must be a problem. Don’t these people recognise crap-speak?
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@Paperboy, they appear to thrive on it ‘ Digital marketing solutions’ or flogging web space as it’s more commonly known.
My brother in law , a business owner with two leisure businesses ,had the misfortune to attend a ‘digital marketing solutions seminar’ ( not NQ to be fair) only to be bombarded by obviously scripted generic cod web facts, misleading stats around the groups web traffic and fumbled responses to basic questions about demographics and response mechanisms ,the recommendations and advice was,surprise surprise, to use their web sites and at a special deal’ to do so.Needless to say no bookings were made which resulted in the ‘digital specialist’ losing interest and moving on to try his luck with another audience member.
Oh for the days of plain English and letting the products speak for themselves.When you have to resort to marketing solutions,webinars,seminars or roadshows to flog the goods you know somethings serious wrong.
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