Why user needs-focused articles perform better

The user needs concept ensures the audience is put at the heart of the newsroom’s output. When you are commissioning articles, you have two choices: to pull focus around a single user need - or not.

To find out whether articles with a clear user needs focus perform better, editorial analytics provider smartocto undertook a large-scale data analysis of articles published by titles at Ringier Media International.

We observed that focused articles consistently performed better across multiple metrics, all of which were statistically significant - and some of which showed impressive differences. Loyalty scores in particular were much stronger among focused articles.

Read more: Getting started with user needs: lessons from Ringer Media International

The conclusion? Editors, it is worth your time to commission focused articles.

The data study: Do user needs-focused articles perform better?

Conveniently, Ringier Media International CEO and user needs’ most vocal evangelist, Dmitry Shishkin, was equally keen to answer this question. So we asked our data scientists to dive into the data to find out.

Methodology

Common sense dictates that a ‘focused article’ will have more than a 51 per cent focus on its dominant user need driver (fact-driven, context-driven, emotion-driven or action-driven). For the purposes of this study (and to ensure that remove any ambiguity), we defined ‘focused’ to mean articles reading more than 60 per cent in our User Needs Playground. Anything scoring less than 60 per cent was deemed to be non-focused.

We classified the 16 021 articles published at Ringier Media International brands* between November 1, 2024 and January 10, 2025 into two different categories.

User need-focused articles

Non-focused articles

This resulted in 4 445 articles that scored at least 60 per cent on one of the four axes. In order to make a statistically correct analysis we randomly picked the same size of non-focused articles from the remaining batch of 11 576 articles.

Results

"We are often asked if user needs actually work. This study shows that they do. What we can see is that however you look at it - whichever metrics, whichever user needs - you are simply better off publishing focused articles," says Rutger Verhoeven CMO at smartocto.

Focused articles performed better. That is it, in a nutshell. Our analysis looked at performance from multiple angles, and at this more nuanced level, you can see that sometimes the margin of improvement was very impressive, and sometimes it was more modest. The findings from this study support what we have long said: that the user needs framework is not about covering the news. It is about covering the news from a more relevant perspective - and that this approach pays dividends.

Explore: Tool for journalists: Story SpinnerAI, for generating story angles based on user needs

"A decade after the BBC's pioneering work with user needs, publishers worldwide are embracing this approach – and for good reason. Audience-centricity is not just a buzzword; it is the engine of modern media success. Purposeful coverage, relevance, distinctiveness, and a demonstrable impact on people's lives are the pillars of a thriving media organisation," says Dmitry Shishkin, CEO at Ringier Media International.

You can download the full deck of results here, but here are three key takeaways from this data study.

1. Articles which have a clear focus get more readers

We count an article read only when a reader opens a page and sticks around for at least 10 seconds, so it is much more indicative than a simple ‘page view’, which is fundamentally just a browser event. These findings show that it is not just that focused articles get more readers - those readers stick around to read more and for longer.

Focused articles are obvious from the headline: the reader knows what they are going to get, so they are much less likely to feel that they have been misled once they start reading.

"My focus for editors, across my experiences at the BBC, while consulting, and now at Ringier, is clear: content decisions are theirs, but user-centricity in coverage is non-negotiable. Smartocto's analysis of Ringier Media International's work demonstrates that this approach drives results without compromising editorial quality," says Shishkin.

2. The reader experience is deeper

Page depth - the metric which tells us how many additional pages were opened after that first one - is significantly higher for focused articles.

By working in a more focused, more targeted way, there is an obvious invitation to ‘chain’ stories together: to create and link related articles from different perspectives. So your initial fact-driven article about the California wildfires might invite a click onto a page explaining the science behind it, the people at the cutting edge of environmental and forestry research, or information about how and where to seek help. Where signposting is obvious, reader pathways are easier to navigate and people are happy to wander.

Read more: New playbook to help publishers boost content strategy

The other takeaway from this is a simple one: the best thing you can do to build a loyal audience is to create outstanding content.

"Why does recirculation matter? Because it signifies audience engagement. This graph shows that focused articles lead to higher recirculation rates, indicating that satisfied readers are more likely to return for more content," adds Shishkin.

3. User needs focus fosters loyalty

Loyalty is important for newsrooms. Loyal users read more, read more often, and read more deeply. They are the ones more likely to convert to subscribers or to take out a membership. In short, this is a demographic worth nurturing. So it is encouraging - though not surprising - to see that they respond much more positively to focused articles.

Let’s explain Loyalty. At smartocto we define it slightly differently - and that is important:

Loyalty, in the world of smartocto insights, means something very specific. We define loyal users as those who are ‘habitually highly engaged’. This means that they do not just consume a lot of content, and they do not just read regularly - it means that in any rolling fifteen-day period, the loyal user will have visited your site at least eight times. What this highlights, then, are users who really have connected to your brand and value the way you produce news. And the metric itself is significant because it can - uniquely - measure a human event, not just a browser one.

What do you consider to be more valuable: a visitor who returns to your site three times (giving you three pageviews) or three visitors who come to your page only once (also giving you three pageviews)?

Read more: How to define loyalty

It is not hard to understand why this demographic is of such importance to publishers.

• Building a subscription or membership base? Loyalty & engagement is everything
• Knowing how to get those newsletter readers returning time and time again? Loyalty and engagement matter
• Encouraging any kind of brand-specific news habit? Studying loyalty is key

The link with user needs is obvious: both put the audience (humans) front and centre. In approaching commissioning from a user needs point of view, you are striving first to understand what you stand for - and what your audience wants and needs.

In measuring loyalty, you are seeing how your loyal segment of the audience responds - and once you understand what your ideal reader does, it is much easier to reverse engineer your successes.

Our findings show that metrics that relate to loyalty and loyal behaviour all score higher with focused articles than they do with unfocused articles.

"Seeing all that green, especially in the loyalty metrics, is fantastic. Loyal users clearly value user-needs articles and they are showing it with increased engagement and return visits. It is lovely to see the model working... and even though I have helped countless newsrooms implement it, I am still slightly shocked every time! It's like magic but with data," says Shishkin.

Cheeky question: aren’t these margins a bit… marginal?

Not cheeky at all. Great question, actually.

The improvements might seem slight, but there are several things to remember here:

1. Many of these results are statistically significant. If, like us, you had to get a quick refresher about what this means, it is this: results which are consistent and strong enough that its statisticians are confident they form a rule, not an anomaly.
2. We are in the business of looking for marginal gains. Slow and steady really does win the race, and making small improvements and tweaks where you can both put you on the right trajectory and also strengthens a growth mindset.
3. While we are talking iteration, no one thing is going to the bolt of lightning. Success and improvement will come from ensuring that you embrace change across the board, not just in one corner.
4. Finally, a return to the first point and a word about our methodology. In setting the bar for ‘focused articles’ at 60 per cent and not 50 per cent, we were ensuring that the ‘focus’ we are talking about is completely unambiguous.

Adopting a user-needs-focused approach to content commissioning and production isn’t going to be the only thing that will make a difference. It is one of several tools or insights at your disposal - and you should absolutely be looking to deploy as many as you can. Quality of writing, judicious use of headlines and image, and paying close attention to platform, format, timing and article length are all vital. Together, they’ll be greater than the sum of their parts.

"Put simply, user needs matter. Prioritising audience needs isn't just good journalism; it is smart business. It is the key to unlocking engagement, driving recirculation, and building a loyal readership," says Shishkin.

"Having a clear and well-thought-out follow-up strategy in place is essential. Breaking news is best covered from an ‘Update me’ perspective, but already having the follow-ups ready from a contextual or emotional point of view will make a big difference," concludes Verhoeven.

This article was originally published on smartocto.com and is republished here with permission.

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