Two publishers, their exponential growth, and the friendly rivalry between them

The background: Walter White is the publisher of the Cincinnati Herald, the longest-running African-American newspaper in Cincinnati, Ohio since 1955. Paris Brown is the publisher of the Baltimore Times, a free weekly newspaper founded in 1986 that covers the African American community in Baltimore, Maryland.  

The two became fast friends as participants in the Knight x LMA BloomLab. With funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, BloomLab is an immersive technology and revenue program that drives growth for Black-owned local media outlets. One of their BloomLab coaches, Director of Technology and Innovation Apryl Pilolli, worked with them to implement technology to help accelerate digital growth. 

One of those technology solutions was Newspack, which serves as their content management, audience development, and revenue system. Moving the publishers she coaches over to Newspack is one of the first things Pilolli does when she begins working with them. “Newspack is a requirement because I want an easy-to-use, powerful, and stable system for them,” she said. 

When Newspack’s Revenue Development Program launched, Pilolli partnered with the head of the program, Kim Bode, to recommend BloomLab publishers who would benefit from the program. Brown and White were both looking for ways to improve newsletter signups and engagement, so they were a natural fit for the program. 

The bottom line: During the six-week sprint at the beginning of the RDP, White increased monthly newsletter signups by nearly 140% and Brown saw a nearly 415% increase in monthly newsletter signups. White and Brown’s newsletter list size also increased during the sprint — White’s by 17% and Brown’s by 7%. 

The big picture

Brown and White are both publishers of their respective newspapers. But, because they have tiny teams and very small budgets, they tend to do it all. Wearing many hats can seem like a burden for some. But, Brown and White thrive on it. They each love getting their hands in the data and finding ways to improve their digital strategies, which they’re building from the ground up as they make the move from printing a newspaper to an entirely online publication. 

The day-to-day: Brown joined the Baltimore Times with a sales and marketing background. So, as soon as she started, she wanted to look for ways to diversify revenue. The first thing she did was overhaul their relic of a website. It didn’t have robust functionality, wasn’t mobile-friendly, and couldn’t support video — all the things that she knew would help them grow their audience. 

The transition to Newspack opened up new revenue streams by supporting functionality like microsites. Brown partnered with Pilolli to develop an advertising campaign for her microsite Give Black for the Holidays — an initiative that supports black-owned businesses in Baltimore. The campaign brought in $40,000 in its first year. 

White was in a similar position with needing to make upgrades to his website. He also wanted to change the way they were building newsletters because it was taking too much time, especially when it came to placing ads in each newsletter. Before Newspack, it was a manual process of adding each story and each ad to their newsletters using their email service provider. 

The integration with Google Ad Manager allows his team to quickly add advertisements to their site. They also use Newspack’s Newsletter Ad Management tool to quickly pull ads into their newsletters. 

Pilolli was helping White and Brown on the path to digital growth and she recommended each participate in the RDP as a way to optimize their newsletter strategies. Since both White and Brown were exploring ways to find new revenue streams, joining the RDP Newsletter Track was the most logical next step. 

Getting to the next level: As Pilolli puts it, BloomLab provides publishers with the foundation to think about digital growth — meaning they provide ongoing education for publishers to accelerate their digital strategies. 

The RDP helps BloomLab publishers implement strategies and tactics to grow their audience and set goals to help them do so. Each publisher is assigned a coach to help them build a customized growth strategy based on their individual needs. And, as part of a cohort, the publishers are able to bounce ideas off one another as well. 

By participating in the RDP, they learned how to create a newsletter growth strategy and measure their results. Those growth tactics included using inline and pop-up calls to action to help them capture their readers’ attention and grow newsletter signups. Brown said she also learned how to use images from their website in their newsletters as opposed to using public art from an internet search, which was often boring and stale. 

The result: White increased monthly newsletter signups by nearly 140% and Brown saw a nearly 415% increase in monthly newsletter signups. Each was also able to increase site registrations, which included donations and content subscriptions. Brown increased registrations by 383% and White by 55%. 

During their program sprint, Brown and White began to form a friendly rivalry with one another when it came to newsletter growth. Once they learned how to use Newspack’s Data Dashboard to optimize their campaigns, they started to pinpoint what they could do to outdo each other when it came to signup growth and engagement. The contest continues as they head into the holiday season with new robust digital strategies.

Working together to find solutions

The ease of use of Newspack has been a game changer for White. “Newspack puts you in a position where you don’t have to go out and find five people to do one thing anymore.” He finds value in being able to build newsletters, create ads, and look at his data all in one place. 

Brown shares White’s perspective citing her love of the Data Dashboard and the integration with ActiveCampaign. She specifically loves the support Newspack provides with the RDP program and the day-to-day questions she relays to the Newspack Support Team.

“You give all the support, then you give all of the training. But more importantly, I think, is the understanding that Newspack brings in revenue.” Brown adds, “Newspack saves time, money, and literally almost a staff person. The benefits far outweigh the cost that is associated with it.”