Case Study: Omroep West boosts audience engagement with Smartocto

Omroep West boosts pageviews 14% with Smartocto

Omroep West, a Dutch regional broadcaster, wanted to improve audience engagement by optimizing its content strategy. The challenge, as stated by Editor-in-Chief Henk Ruijl, was to integrate the user needs model to create news articles that better resonated with their audience, moving beyond a heavy focus on fact-driven "Update me" stories. To address this, they partnered with the vendor Smartocto.

Smartocto implemented a solution that included an in-person training for the newsroom on the user needs framework. They provided a decision matrix to help reduce overproduction of "Update me" articles and integrated planning for follow-up stories into the commissioning process. The results were significant: Omroep West reduced its "Update me" output to 55%, leading to a 14% increase in average pageviews and a 4% increase in average attention time. Smartocto's solution also invigorated the newsroom, creating a positive cultural shift.

Omroep West