Audience Development Lead

Audience Development Lead

Overview

Hearst Newspapers is seeking an Audience Development Lead to help our newsrooms execute audience development strategies that increase reach, engagement, loyalty and repeat visits.

Working as part of the Central Audience team, this role supports the rollout and adoption of audience programs, including YouTube strategy, across Hearst Newspapers. The Audience Development Lead will help newsrooms launch and improve video, audio, newsletters, alerts and community initiatives while identifying opportunities to strengthen off-platform distribution and audience engagement.

This role is highly collaborative and execution-focused. The ideal candidate enjoys turning ideas into repeatable workflows, coaching newsroom teams on best practices, and helping scale successful audience initiatives across multiple markets.

Responsibilities

Audience Programs & Execution

• Support the rollout of audience development initiatives across Hearst Newspapers.
• Help newsrooms implement best practices that increase audience engagement and encourage repeat visits.
• Assist in developing playbooks, documentation and training materials that make successful programs easy to replicate.
• Monitor the performance of audience initiatives and share learnings with newsroom partners.

Video & Audio

• Help scale video publishing across Hearst Newspapers by supporting workflows, templates and syndication efforts.
• Own YouTube channel programming strategydesign and branding in partnership with newsrooms (thumbnails, banners, end screens, etc) to assure best practices are adopted.
• Coordinate with newsroom teams to encourage consistent adoption of video best practices, with a particular focus on YouTube.
• Support audience development efforts for audio products and other emerging content formats.

Distribution & Community

• Help newsrooms optimize content distribution across owned and third-party platforms.
• Share best practices for audience engagement across social platforms, newsletters, alerts and other distribution channels.
• Monitor and ensure newsroom adoption of social media best practices with an eye toward reach and audience engagement.
• Support community-building initiatives that encourage audience participation and repeat engagement, including user-generated content.

Newsletters & Alerts

• Execute newsletter and alerting strategies at the newsroom level, working in concert with editorial and marketing operations leads to optimize our outlined programs.
• Help identify opportunities to improve newsletter performance, subscriber engagement and reader retention, including recommending AI-assisted workflows and technical solutions.
• Assist with mobile alert strategy, scheduling and best practices.
• Work with newsroom teams to ensure newsletters and alerts align with editorial priorities and audience needs.

Collaboration & Support

• Partner with Audience Strategy, Product and Editorial teams to help implement new audience programs and tools.
• Assist with onboarding and training for audience products and workflows.
• Collect feedback from newsroom partners and communicate opportunities for improvement.
• Help document successful approaches so they can be shared across Hearst Newspapers.

Qualifications

Ideal candidates will demonstrate many of the following:

• Experience in digital journalism, audience development or newsroom operations.
• Understanding of audience engagement and digital publishing best practices.
• Familiarity with newsletters, alerts, social distribution, video or audience engagement programs.
• Comfort working with audience analytics tools to monitor performance and identify opportunities.
• Strong organizational and project coordination skills.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to work with multiple newsroom teams.
• A collaborative mindset and willingness to learn new tools, platforms and audience practices.
• Passion for local journalism and helping newsrooms succeed.

Additional Information

• Sponsorship: This position does not provide immigration sponsorship. Applicants must have the right to work in the U.S. without immigration sponsorship.
• Accommodations: We are committed to an accessible application process. If you need an accommodation to apply, please contact hnpemployment@hearst.com. This email address is for accommodation requests only.

Benefits

We support our employees through personal and professional development and promote physical, financial and emotional wellbeing for employees and their families. Our benefits include:

• Physical Wellbeing: Medical, dental and vision coverage to help keep you and your family healthy.
• Invest in the Future: Competitive retirement plan with a matching program in most markets.
• Generous Paid Time Off: Ample time off, including holidays and vacation.
• Paid Parental Leave: Paid leave to support growing families and new parents.
• Monthly Child & Dependent Care Reimbursement: Financial support for the care of your loved ones.
• Emotional Wellbeing: Mental wellness benefits to support your emotional wellbeing.
• LGBTQ+ & Inclusive Health Services: Inclusive healthcare designed for individual needs.
• Fertility Coverage & Menopause Support: Support throughout different stages of your health and family journey.
• Pet Wellness Reimbursement & Rover Credits: Support to help keep your pets happy and healthy.
• And more: Learn more about additional benefits and details here.

Compensation

The base salary range below is the Company's good-faith estimate for this position in the posted work location at the time of posting. Final starting salary will be based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to skills, experience, training, certifications, education, location and market considerations.

Base Salary Range:

$110,000 - $125,000 USD