The Opportunity
From existing data we knew that content consumption was at record high levels due to the Coronavirus pandemic and readers were seeing value in our news experience. We also saw huge uplifts in subscription and upgrades to our premium subscription plans.
The opportunity was simple. How could we continue to build on showcasing our depth and breadth of coverage whilst further increasing our brand authority and value to an ever increasing audience.
Approach
Firstly, we made the Live article for Coronavirus free for all.
Subsequent feedback from our readers was proving they truly valued this.
Our live articles were proving to be our most useful and valuable article template to keep our readers informed.
Armed with this knowledge our product teams, editorial newsrooms and technology teams collaborated (virtually, of course) to see how we best could evolve our Homepage coverage.
Solution
We set about designing a component that would showcase the live article plus two additional content slots. Editorial felt they could use additional areas to provide readers with deeper analysis and understanding around COVID-19.
Below this component, I saw an opportunity to create an additional content area that could serve a few different purposes; Make readers aware of new types of COVID-19 related content. Drive awareness and cross-sell of our new newsletters and podcasts. Give editorial greater flexibility to place relevant and timely content.
COVID-19 Data Widget
We also enabled our readers to easily scan the homepage and view the how the Coronavirus pandemic was unfolding by the numbers. I designed a data widget that supported multiple data points for the major Australian statistics; #of cases, #of deaths, #of new cases per day, #of confirmed cases by state and territory.
