Newspack publishers who participated in our Revenue Development Program added more than $500K to their revenue streams since its official launch in July of last year.
With support from the Lenfest Local News Infrastructure Fund, we created the program to help our publishers expand their audience reach, achieve greater financial stability, and foster a community of learning. With such a strong, out-of-the-gate start, we’re delighted to extend the program through 2025 and 2026 with our partner, Blue Engine Collaborative. This article highlights the data behind the results we’ve seen so far.
Driving program participation
The program is dedicated to helping publishers optimize the use of Newspack’s powerful tools to drive audience and revenue growth through hands-on training, one-on-one coaching, and peer support.
In 2024, we received 111 applications (including some from publishers who applied multiple times) and welcomed 63 participants into the first seven cohorts, focused on newsletter and reader revenue optimization. Beyond these 63, we’ve admitted 19 more publishers to cohorts eight and nine, which begin in late January.
Across 360 program hours — including 47 group sessions and more than 270 individual coaching hours — we’ve learned a lot and have made adjustments to the program. After the beta phase, we pivoted to working exclusively with Blue Engine Collaborative coaches, who have been phenomenal partners.
Getting feedback via surveys
We rely heavily on surveys to ensure we deliver the best possible experience for our participants. They are invaluable as they help us adapt the program in real time, understand how the 1:1 coaching sessions are going, and spot potential issues early.
In all, we distributed 42 surveys and analyzed more than 320 responses.
With an overall Net Promoter Score of 65.4, the program demonstrates strong satisfaction and loyalty among participants. We averaged well above 4.5 out of 5 for group sessions and coaching.
Publishers often said they didn’t have enough time to get everything done during the initial six-session sprint, which is why the “satisfaction with progress” score is consistently a bit lower. But, the program is designed to set publishers up with initiatives they can continue building on after the sprint. We help participants stay on track for a year after their start date with quarterly check-ins.
Increasing adoption of Newspack tools
Part of the goal of this program is to enable our publishers to take full advantage of the Newspack tools that can help them grow.
We have a wide range of applicants to the program. Some with mature growth strategies like inewsource, already have team members dedicated to building audience and revenue. In their case, the program allowed them to focus on refining specific tactics. For others, it was an opportunity to get started with strategy development.
We carefully review each application so we can place publishers in cohorts with others who have similar business needs and goals. The team at The Journal by the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC), for example, questioned whether they were ready for something so “advanced.” But once in the program, they discovered other publishers in the cohort felt the same way. In the end, with the help of their coach and peers, KLC increased revenue from paid supporters by 107%.
We’ve found that pairing technical guidance with proven practices drives product adoption. During her sprint, Paris Brown, the publisher of the Baltimore Times, learned how to create a newsletter growth strategy using inline and pop-up calls to action. These tactics helped her increase monthly newsletter signups by 415%.
Not every feature is relevant for every publisher. Some, for example, don’t use newsletter ads. But the cohorts are small enough to allow each publisher to focus where the need is greatest.
Calculating impact
We compared the average weekly growth before the sprint to our most recent check-in points to calculate the value added through the program. These are broken down by track type and key metric: new newsletter subscribers for the Newsletters Track; and new financial supporters for the Reader Revenue Track. We multiplied the difference in weekly averages between the start of the program and the last check-in point by the number of weeks since the program began and the Customer Lifetime Value.
We acknowledge this isn’t perfect math. Publishers operate in complex ecosystems where content, news events, initiatives outside the program, and broader market dynamics always influence conversions. However, this approach gives us a starting point for understanding ROI.
ROI in H2 2024 (excluding beta phase cohorts one and two):
- 148% for Cohort Three
- 270% for Cohort Four
- 50% for Cohort Five
Looking ahead to 2025
We’re gearing up for an exciting second year of the program. Later this month, we’ll kick off cohorts eight and nine. We’re aiming to run two cohorts each quarter. By late Q1, we plan to launch the Ads and Sponsorships Track.
Newspack’s Revenue Development Program is application-based and open to any current Newspack publisher in the United States. Current publishers can apply for the Reader Revenue Track or the Newsletter Track. Prospective publishers can get in touch with our sales team to learn more.
