What's the biggest mistake when launching multiple local newsletters?

One of my biggest mistakes was launching six newsletters in six random cities, because a friend wanted to try that model, instead of concentrating them in one metro. 60,000 subscribers in one big city would have been far more valuable than 10,000 in each of six. We blew that one, and I learned my lesson.

Why does concentration matter so much?

Advertisers buy reach in a market. A bank, hospital system or personal injury firm in one metro doesn't care that you also have 10,000 readers four states away. They care how much of their area you reach.

Here's a real example. My newsletter in the biggest suburb of Austin has about 13,000 subscribers. Another one on the other side of town has almost 10,000. They both cover the same North Austin area, so I can sell a company one audience of about 24,000, with open rates over 50%.

"It's kind of own an area because then you can get in with the regional players."

A cluster also builds something bigger than any single title. Picture a big-city newsletter, a couple of its suburbs, and a neighboring metro. That's a regional media brand, and the value that accrues there is much higher than a single one. It also makes it much easier to get in front of bigger advertisers who want broader coverage.

Where did I end up concentrated?

My biggest concentrations ended up being these:

Area	Newsletters	Combined subscribers
Austin suburbs	3	about 30,000
Las Vegas area	2	40,000+
Sacramento area	4	20,000 to 25,000

Isn't launching a new market cheap anyway?

It is. Everything can be duplicated. Nobody in Knoxville knows that Anaheim is getting the same basic style and memes. That's exactly why it's tempting to go wide, and why going wide is a trap. Launch cost was never the problem. Attention and sales are.

Audience without sales is worth nothing. I've had 8,000 subscribers in six different markets making zero. Some of the numbers on those are great, and a couple are in really expensive, good markets. The answer is obviously a local person to take it over, or a salesperson. Remote work like Instagram carousels, cold DMs, cold email and calling can make it work somewhat, just not as well as in person.

Can you launch 20 newsletters at once?

No. A group I consulted told me they'd launch a few at once, then came back and said 20. I told them you can't do that and have them be any good, or even spend the money to acquire subscribers for them.

When I checked back, they had about 4,000 subscribers total across 20 newsletters. That's 500 or fewer each, sent about once a month, with one person spending a comical amount of effort to keep it going. That's what happens when people throw stuff at the wall hoping it will work.

What does spreading out cost you?

• Attention. I have two newsletters that each get less attention than they deserve. Every added brand splits your week further.
• Sales. Each new city is a new set of business owners to meet from zero.
• Content. Every city needs its own stories. A guest who runs two titles told me managing ten or fifteen would take much better processes.
• Brand. Scattered titles never add up to one name people know.

One brand or several newsletters in the same area?

Both have a case, and I've done it both ways. Most of my metros run hyper-local: each suburb, or a couple of suburbs, gets its own newsletter instead of one for all of Sacramento or all of Austin. The product is curation. Local information is spread all over the internet, so we put the interesting stuff in one email that takes about five minutes a week.

In my own area I'd do it differently if I started over. I began with two newsletters because hyper-local felt right, and there's a real advantage to it. It's also double the work, and it makes you look smaller. Walking into a business and saying you have 3,000 on one and 4,000 on another is weaker than saying you have 7,000 on your newsletter.

My fix is one brand with multiple publications: newsletter, website, print and deals as legs of the same stool. I'm building it backwards. I wish I'd started with the one brand and added the local pieces later.

On the back end, one county brand can still feed several newsletters. At WilCo Guide every event is tagged by city. A town newsletter pulls its nearby cities, and a county-wide interest newsletter like our seniors one pulls events tagged for every city in the county.

Can you stack different kinds of newsletters in one metro?

Yes, and that's where I'm headed in Sacramento, where I already run several general local newsletters. Add a business newsletter for the whole metro on top, and you can sell an advertiser different audiences in different ways.

The way I rank audience value: regular local newsletters are the lowest, a metro-wide business newsletter is a step above, and a narrow niche like startups is above that but only works in maybe ten cities. A business version should work in any area over about half a million people. More on that in local business newsletters.

What should you do instead?

1. Pick one region you can physically show up in.
2. Launch one combined brand covering 100,000+ people (see one town or a whole county).
3. Get a local person or a salesperson who actually sells before you add markets.
4. Add sub-publications or neighboring towns under the same umbrella once the first one works.
5. Pitch the cluster as one buy to the biggest advertisers in the region.