Johnston Press looks to encourage push to grow online traffic with staff cash incentives
Johnston Press has launched a new initiative offering its staff cash rewards for helping to increase website traffic in an attempt to make up ground on its rivals Trinity Mirror and Newsquest.
Employees of publisher, which has The Scotsman and Yorkshire Post among its titles, are being offered up to £5,000 for extracurricular staff events as well as a series of cash prizes for “delivering the highest percentage increase in page view growth” throughout October, November and December.
The initiative was announced in a staff email which set out the publishers aim to reach a combined 110 million pages views per month across its 201 sites. It has been rolled out as part of a strategy to claw back ground in online audience figures against its rivals. The first half of 2015 saw an average of 972,454 daily unique users across its sites, ranking it behind Trinity Mirror, Newsquest and Local World.
The email sets out the reward structure of the initiative with £2,500 going to first prize, £1,250 for second, £750 for third and £250 for all other publishing units. The money will be doubled if the 110 million page views target is met.
Ideas for driving online traffic were also given cash reward incentive in the email which said the publisher would “reward a particularly strong or innovative idea or story and is open to all editorial teams and team members".
Johnston Press chief executive, Ashley Highfield, said the competition was “a great way to increase traffic to our sites, while showcasing the quality journalism behind the stories coming from the heart of the communities we serve.”
He added that the publisher’s editorial teams were “already focused on driving our digital audiences. We’ve seen a significant digital transformation this year through Newsroom of the Future as we push for an increase in total audience and drive digital revenues.
Editorial board chairman and editor of the Yorkshire Post, Jeremy Clifford, said the initiative marked “the first time editorial has been able to come together around one collective target”.
He continued that putting together a competition would “hopefully instil a bit of fun around what is an incredibly important target”.
In attempting to increase online views Johnston Press recently launched a new ad campaign to mark the revamp of its Edinburgh flagship Scotsman newspaper. The campaign promoted the redesign of the title which included a new app and fully responsive website showcasing a similar look and feel to that of The Guardian. It is now planning to implament the revamps to its other titles.