Can a print mailer or magazine make money for a local newsletter?

Marketing your newsletter usually costs money. What if you got paid to do it?

I talked to a guy who sends those giant postcards, and he makes money from them. You pick up a slot, you make a couple thousand dollars sending them out, and the mailer markets your brand at the same time.

"You're turning your cost center into a profit center."

Why did I change my mind about print?

I always wrote print off. Most of what I'd seen looked complicated and expensive: an 80-page magazine means selling a ton of ads, creating a ton of content and printing something heavy.

Then a 12-to-14-page magazine sat on my floor for a month. It had a phone number for the team that runs it, so I called. The guy answered and we talked for 30 minutes. The magazine is almost completely ads. One real story, plus one article a business paid to have written about them.

I also get stacks of about 25 postcards wrapped together, one for each home service company. Those businesses keep paying to be in there, so it's obviously working. A short ad magazine sits right between a postcard and a glossy 80-pager.

The people making the most money in local media do print. Paul Gewuerz told me on my podcast that Community Impact's founder started with $40,000 on credit cards and now reaches about 2.5 million households with about 40 publications in Texas. Mailing free to homes doesn't need anyone's permission, since the addresses come from public records. It's very expensive. If you get good at selling ads, it can crush.

How does a postcard operator make money?

From his reported numbers, as he relayed them to me:

• About 16 ad slots per card
• $250 to $400 per slot
• Mailed to high-income households
• Bundled with a newsletter ad, an article and a social post into a package around $1,200 to $1,500 a month

Another operator who sells mailers told me his large card goes to 5,000 homes, costs roughly $2,200 to print and mail, and sells in $500 slots. Those are their results, not ones I've tested myself.

Businesses want this. Twice now I've watched someone in a local Facebook group post that they're mailing a postcard in two weeks with 12 slots, exclusive by category. They get about 50 comments. Businesses raising their hand to give money.

What does the math look like on a small magazine?

Hypothetical numbers, to show the shape:

Line	Amount
Cost to make and mail to 5,000 homes	About $6,000
Advertisers pay, combined	About $8,000
Profit	About $2,000

And you named the magazine after your newsletter. You made money and put your brand in front of 5,000 homeowners. Target the higher-value homes.

Why would a newsletter want print, even at break-even?

Reach. Print died, and now there's so much online that it's worth going back. A lot of people just aren't online in a way where they'd ever hear about what we do. Print expands your audience to them.

I'd do it even if I made no money. If my newsletter is on a mailer that hits 5,000 homes, more people see the brand and it feels more valuable. Making money is a bonus.

One operator I interviewed on my show built his quarterly mailer idea around a simple question: what would he pay for? That's a good filter for any print product.

How do you package it?

Sell what businesses already want, even if you think they're wrong to want it, then upsell. Get them in the door with the mailer, then show them the Instagram and newsletter packages. Do both. The value is in having both.

Bundle every channel into tiers. For example:

Premium package (6 months)
- Half-page ad in the print edition
- 4 ads in the newsletter
- 2 Instagram highlights

The packages I like also include a quarterly Instagram post, an article about the business on the website for SEO, and a spot in the directory.

How do you get a nervous advertiser to say yes?

De-risk the first package. An operator I interviewed on my show sells a 30-ad package that works out to about $250 per ad. He'll discount a $2,500 month to get a first-timer in, and he advises running four weeks in a row instead of one-off ads.

His proof point: a 22,000-open email ad generated about 250 high-intent clicks for a restaurant. And real estate is always the top click. Those are his numbers from his market, but the structure carries over to print: a clear package, a lower-risk first purchase, and enough repetition to work.

For pricing digital placements alongside print, see how to price local newsletter ads. For bundling postcards with email ads, see print postcards and newsletter bundles.