It’s been a year since Nine launched the 9Honey network brand and created a voice for female audiences.
Today, 9Honey reaches close to 2Million UA’s and is No1 in reader engagement in its category. Hear what Nine’s Digital Content Director, Helen McCabe and 9Honey’s Network Editor Kerri Elstub have to say about the formula for the site’s success.
“The thing I’m most pleased about is that a television network can produce an online lifestyle network that becomes highly competitive in less than 12 months,” says Helen McCabe, Nine’s Digital Content Director.
Over the past year 9Honey has surged in unique audience, reaching a high of 1.954 million in July and consistently achieving the highest levels of site engagement among its lifestyle peers – more than 13 minutes 23 seconds per user in September.
“In both audience growth and engagement 9Honey has exceeded all of our expectations,” McCabe said. “We knew we had a formula for middle Australian women that was non-judgemental and feel-good, but I could never have imagined we would get to a unique audience of almost two million in the first 12 months.
“There is tremendous engagement on the site and a lot of debate around the numbers. People will say this is bigger or that’s bigger, but what you can’t dispute is that we are number one on engagement, as well as getting some great numbers throughout the year.”
9Honey’s Network Editor, Kerri Elstub, agrees, arguing that the formula for the site’s success is in its upbeat and positive editorial formula.
“It has been an amazing learning curve,” says Elstub. “We have focused on catering to middle Australia and our readers tell us what they want in no uncertain terms. I’ve been thrilled to see people organically sharing our content on social media or just reading it on the train, for instance.
“Our approach is to be a positive and fun space to be in, and this is especially powerful for clients who are focused on female audiences.”
McCabe says there is a strong correlation between Nine’s television audience and the 9Honey online audience.
“I often talk about 9Honey being for the women who watch our TV shows – everything from the Today Show to The Block and Love Island.
“What makes 9Honey different is that it’s a mass-market women’s site. We are going for scale and reach – we are not looking at niche audiences, so we have to hit that broad audience with our story choices.”
2017 has also seen Nine overhaul its native offering around online lifestyle properties, aligning it with its integration arm 9Powered to offer broader solutions to clients.
“We recently relaunched our native offering to move towards more 360-based solutions from our 9Powered and Creative Solutions teams,” says Anna Quinn, Nine’s Director of Content & Commercial Strategy. “As part of a broadcast network we have access to amazing assets which include talent, video capabilities and exclusive content that can provide unique solutions for clients.”
What’s New for 9Honey?
But there is still a lot to do for 9Honey next year. Ove the next 12 months, we will build on the success of the 9Honey network and expand the 9Honey brand, generating exciting new opportunities for your brand to connect with this powerful segment.
“We will be completely be reimaging the site, and we are in the process of looking at what a women’s lifestyle site of the future might look like.” Says Helen.
McCabe also notes that from a content view, 9Honey will continue to build out its stable of podcasts, which currently include Honey Mums, Life Bites and the new What the F@*# is for Dinner, while also preparing to launch a half-hour chat show around Married at First Sight on 9Life in 2018.
“We will build out our slate of podcasts and they will be a bit surprising and then on television we are also going to turn the 9Honey stars into TV stars,” says McCabe “We already have some TV segments, and next year we will have our own show off the back of Married at First Sight and therefore a lot more video to offer.”
To find out more about how to engage with Australia’s No1 Women’s network, contact your Nine Sales Representative.
Source: Nielsen Digital Ratings Monthly September 2017
