How YubaNet doubled its revenue using Newspack

The background: When YubaNet launched in 1999, the internet was still in its dial-up era. Founders Pascale Fusshoeller and wife Susan Levitz were ahead of the curve when they started YubaNet as a digital-only publication serving Nevada City, Grass Valley, and Truckee – the three municipalities in Nevada County, California.

The local legacy newspaper was doing an “inadequate job” covering the community, according to Fusshoeller. “We had 100,000 people and 400 non-profits at the time. Two of the largest non-profits scheduled their biggest fundraisers of the year on the same day, because there was no conflict calendar,” she explained. 

Fusshoeller coded a Computer-Generated Imagery calendar where people could post their events. Levitz suggested they expand the website to cover the weather, and that’s how YubaNet was born. It quickly became a pillar of the community and a trusted source for news. 

The bottom line: Fast forward 20 years to 2019, when Kinsey Wilson founded Newspack under the Automattic umbrella. Fusshoeller and Levitz were on the hunt for a new Content Management System that would support YubaNet’s growth. “We were on the verge of signing up with a WordPress provider. Then I saw the announcement that a new division of WordPress was looking for interested small publishers,” said Fusshoeller. That’s how YubaNet became one of the first publishers to use Newspack. They’ve since doubled their revenue. 

The big picture

Between Levitz’s background in journalism and Fusshoeller’s background in computer science and journalism, they were able to grow YubaNet as a trusted news source for Nevada County, particularly when it came to covering wildfires in the area, which hadn’t really been done before. They even have a section on their website and a newsletter dedicated to fire news. 

When Sheila Cameron joined YubaNet in 2022 to expand its revenue strategy, she began partnering with Fusshoeller and Levitz to monetize YubaNet’s newsletters and website and offer advertisers a sponsored content option. 

At the heart of YubaNet’s values is community. “We believe we’re all in this together,” sums up the list of core values on its website. Part of Cameron’s work for YubaNet is to translate those values into a value proposition for their sales and marketing materials that builds trust with advertisers in the community. 

Getting to the next level: Levitz and Fusshoeller decided to stop running Google ads, despite the financial impact to their revenue, to focus reader attention on local businesses and organizations. Fusshoeller applied for the Revenue Development Program to learn how to strengthen YubaNet’s ad sales, newsletters, and sponsored content offerings.

Cameron also brought client training to the table, refining the value proposition for advertisers to “keep those digital dollars in the community.”

They were building their revenue strategy, but moving slowly. They saw the RDP as a possible extension of their team… a resource that could help strengthen the work they were already doing. 

Fusshoeller participated in RDP’s Newsletters Track because she needed help leveling up their newsletter strategy. She managed four newsletters with an increasing number of subscribers, but wasn’t sending them regularly because she had too much else on her plate. 

The Newsletters Track helped her learn how to use the automation options available through Newspack’s integration with Mailchimp, along with the list segmentation options that helped her streamline the sending of their newsletters. She uses the automation tools to send a welcome series to each new newsletter subscriber that includes three emails: an introduction to YubaNet, an explanation of how to get the most out of the free service, and an invitation to become a paying subscriber.

The program also taught Fusshoeller the value of a “recapture strategy” to re-engage subscribers who’d stopped opening and clicking on emails, and how to use pop-ups to get more newsletter subscribers. “I do have a general aversion to pop-ups,” said Fusshoeller. But she was convinced of their effectiveness once she started to see an uptick in new, engaged subscribers. And she’s in the process of segmenting the nonresponsive subscribers on her list so she can try to re-engage them. 

Cameron went through the Ads/Sponsorships Track of the program to learn how to strengthen the strategies they were already building. Going through the RDP allowed the team to use templates for strategy discussions moving forward, which helped organize their workflows. “It allowed us to really articulate what we needed as an organization.” 

The result:

Since moving to Newspack, YubaNet has doubled its revenue. Fusshoeller said they first started using Newspack’s Audience Management tools to increase donations during their coverage of a major fire in the area, which generated $10,000 in donations the first day. After participating in the Ads/Sponsorships Track of the RDP, YubaNet saw a 95% increase in total weekly average revenue, including: 

• A nearly 100% increase in weekly average direct-sold display ad revenue on the website
• An 87% increase in weekly average direct-sold display ad revenue from newsletters 
• An 86% increase in weekly average revenue from branded content/underwriting, and sponsorships

“Incorporating a regular check-up via the Goal Getter helps refine time estimates from planning to implementation. The Scorecard serves as a financial planning tool, setting realistic revenue assumptions. We use Newspack Campaigns and Newsletters as the foundations of pure reader revenue,” said Fusshoeller about the tools they’ve adopted since going through the RDP. 

The Goal Getter and Scorecard are tools publishers use during the RDP to prioritize and track progress and impact. Fusshoeller and Cameron now use these tools in their daily operations as a way to communicate with one another. Their RDP coach from the Ads/Sponsorships Track, Katie Mercer from Blue Engine Collaborative, helped forecast their quarterly targets using the Scorecard. They’re also using the CRM spreadsheet that Mercer helped them create to monitor contract start/end dates, which helps them manage renewals and campaign launches. 

YubaNet has begun incorporating the data insights it gleans from Newspack Campaigns into its value proposition for potential advertisers. These performance metrics help them have meaningful conversations with their advertisers about the performance of their campaigns, which helps YubaNet strengthen the trust in those relationships. 

Working together to find solutions

“What the RDP allowed us to do was optimize what we already had and put some structure and discipline around the questions we were asking each other,” explained Cameron. “The program allowed us to articulate what we really needed as an organization. It also gave us a little bit of oxygen to figure out where we wanted to go next so that we weren’t just popcorning ideas all over the place and not getting anything done.” 

“The program seriously transformed my approach to the business side. Once I was able to wrap my head around the ideas and got over the “ick factor” when it came to promo, funnel, etc., the results were spectacular,” said Fusshoeller. 

Cameron coined their new motto, “Streamline this!”