Deputy Editor, Audience Strategy & Newsletters

Star Tribune Branding•Minneapolis, MN

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Minnesota Star Tribune is seeking a Deputy Editor, Audience Strategy & Newsletters to join their innovative modern media organization. This critical role on the Audience Team serves as a strategic partner to newsroom editors, overseeing audience team members embedded within editorial departments. The position ensures audience insights, experimentation, and performance strategy are integrated into daily newsroom decision-making. Additionally, this role is the central strategic owner of the Star Tribune’s newsletter portfolio, a key product for reader engagement, subscription value, and community connection. The leader will guide the direction, evaluation, and evolution of over 30 newsletters, ensuring they meet the Star Tribune’s high standards for depth, clarity, and journalistic integrity. This role requires a blend of strategic thinking and execution, with a strong understanding of audience behavior, multi-platform content distribution, performance analytics, and the values of a modern newsroom. The Deputy Editor will help transform individual insights into sustainable systems and measurable impact across desks and platforms, serving as a senior thought partner to the Head of Audience Strategy.

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree in journalism, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and work-related experience.
A minimum of 5 years of significant experience in newsletter strategy, audience development, digital strategy, newsroom audience roles, lifecycle marketing, or related fields.
A minimum of 2 years of experience leading or managing teams.
Strong understanding of audience analytics, performance metrics, and methodology for gleaning actionable insights from data.
Experience conducting audience research to guide editorial and distribution decisions.
Experience working with email service providers (Sailthru or similar platforms preferred).
Excellent communication and collaboration skills, and the ability to build trust with editors and reporters.
A strong commitment to journalism and public service.
A commitment to audiences that represent the breadth of Minnesota’s diversity.
Must be currently legally authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship for employment visa status.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a subscription-based media organization.
Experience managing an email or audience product portfolio.
Experience running structured testing and experimentation programs.
Familiarity with homepage curation in a fast-paced newsroom.

Responsibilities

Lead embedded audience strategy for key coverage pillars including News & Politics, Greater MN, Business, Outdoors, Food & Culture, Sports and Strib Varsity.
Partner with desk editors to identify audience opportunities, data and research needs, performance goals, and experimentation priorities.
Develop shared audience strategy frameworks to guide desk priorities, performance evaluation, and growth opportunities.
Lead audience messaging strategy across owned channels (newsletters, push notifications, in-app messaging, emerging platforms) for cohesive reader experiences and journeys.
Partner with product, data, and marketing teams to develop and automate audience journeys that deepen habit, engagement, subscription value, and reader loyalty.
Encourage thoughtful experimentation across platforms (homepage, newsletters, social media, off-platform distribution).
Help shape story presentation and distribution across platforms to maximize reach, relevance, and reader engagement.
Develop a portfolio-level newsletter strategy balancing audience growth, reader habit, subscription value, editorial priorities, and operational sustainability.
Evaluate new newsletter proposals and guide lifecycle decisions (launches, iterations, sunsets).
Lead experimentation in newsletter subject lines, format, cadence, and segmentation.
Maintain quality and consistency across newsletters in partnership with newsroom editors.
Develop strong technical fluency in the email platform to troubleshoot issues, support producers, and improve newsletter workflows.
Help translate Audience Team priorities into clear systems, workflows, and expectations.
Coach embedded Audience Editors in strategic planning, editor partnership, data interpretation, and platform decision-making.
Build consistent planning, testing, and post-publication learning practices across embedded audience roles.
Identify opportunities to improve collaboration between the Audience Team and desks, product, data, social, homepage, and newsletter stakeholders.
Model strong editorial judgment, audience-first thinking, and collaborative leadership across the newsroom.