Audience Building, B2B, B2C, Newsletters

Advertise to grow the email list? Shanfelt says yes.

Alisa Cromer May 4, 2025

Sure, Eric Shanfelt, CEO of Nearview Media consulting told the audience at the 2025 Niche Publishing Conference, “The number one job of your website is to capture an email.”

However, the website is not the only way to grow the email list. He advised clients to advertise on social media such as META and LinkedIn to achieve their audience target goals.

The upside is significant on a variety of levels. The cost of an email opt-in may be $3 to $5, however, publishers can command much higher prices for first-party data-influenced advertising. CPMs increase by 50-200% for data -targeted audiences and some publishers report getting $35 to $100 CPMs for newsletter ads.

Finally, publishers can resell leads for 5x or more to partnering advertisers, depending on the category.

Here are the three types of campaigns he recommended:

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Categories: Audience Building, B2B, B2C, Newsletters

White paper: Recent research on the value of print advertising

How should niche media, dominated by magazine brands, talk to advertisers about the value of print?

It’s a tricky issue. On the one hand, print sales continue to decline in the face of reduced advertiser demand. Media brokers place almost no value on profitable print advertising sales. This white paper shows all the research you need, with sources and links to use.

Alisa Cromer January 1, 2024

How he did it: Interview with James Cridland, founder of Podnews.net

James Cridland has built a $600,000+ one person media company that he runs part-time. Here’s how he does it.

Alisa Cromer January 6, 2024

The Ultimate Guide to Selling Lead Magnet Advertising

Let's get creative! We researched more than a hundred different lead magnet campaigns to find the best ideas that command top dollars from niche advertisers, and how they did it.

First, to define the terms: A lead magnet is simply gated information a publisher creates that is valuable enough to persuade the audience to leave their contact information.

Advertisers will invest 2 to 5x the cost of a major campaign and in some cases $30,000 to $50,000 - for publishers to create the content, host the lead capture page or system, and deliver the leads generated. They, too, are worried about Google Zero.

The Lead Magnet itself could be a white paper, e-book, video, podcast, or webinar — as long as there is a “hook” that attracts the audience to exchange their contact info for access.

Steal these ideas: Below is a list of the most powerful peer-shared ideas for lead magnet campaigns from case studies and research.

Alisa Cromer August 6, 2025

Niche Revenue Benchmarks: Key Findings and Growth Opportunities

The 2025 Niche Revenue Benchmark report gives new metrics for rev@employee and title, plus the five top opportunities for niche publishers, and key tips from over-performers. Think you know niche media? This report will keep you up to date on where the industry is headed, with links to case studies on publishers who are overperforming. Leave with practical strategies to grow the most valuable revenue streams.

Alisa Cromer January 3, 2024

Newsletter Pricing: Some Publishers leave money on the table study shows

The single biggest opportunity we found in the 2026 Niche Newsletter Revenue Survey is simple: Many publishers underprice newsletter ads and sponsorships.

So how much should a B2B or B2C niche publisher charge based on list size and ad inventory? Is pricing different between B2B and B2C? And where, exactly, are publishers leaving money on the table?

Here are the metric you need to create pricing levels.

Alisa Cromer February 25, 2026

With 12 revenue models, which combinations work?

There are almost as many business models as there are media sectors, well beyond the first three most common: Advertising, Subscriptions, and Events. Many have…

Alisa Cromer January 5, 2023

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