Advertising, Audience Building, B2C, Contests, Memberships & Subscriptions, Newsletters

How they did it: Building the Best of the Best of Contests at Omaha Magazine

Alisa Cromer July 13, 2025

At Omaha Magazine, the number one driver of email subscribers – currently 200,000 in a DMA of just over a million – is the Best of Contest, which still gets 60,000 to 70,000 votes a year. Lemke shared his best practices developed over 42 years of running the contest.

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Categories: Advertising, Audience Building, B2C, Contests, Memberships & Subscriptions, Newsletters

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

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

Marketers turning to magazines: These 7 reports show why

Top reasons marketers are returning to print

Alisa Cromer October 11, 2023

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

Niche Media Events Starter Kit

All the basics needed for a niche media to create a staff-managed event. This guide address staffing, ticket pricing, booth and sponsorship sales, with examples from the field. It also includes downloadable materials you can use and edit, including an event p&l, merchant contract, merchant packet and day-of-event checklist. Please join as a member to access this report and other practical resources to grow revenues in the resource center.

Alisa Cromer August 16, 2023

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

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