Chicago News Weekly (CNW) is a media company focused on covering topics important to Chicago’s Black community across various platforms, including print, digital, audio, social media and live events. CNW joined the Local News Accelerator, aiming to develop a newsletter product as both a revenue tool and way to deepen engagement with a segment of the publication’s audience: Black professionals in Chicago aged 35-55 earning $75K or more.
Medill-funded research provided CNW with insight into the news preferences of this target audience, shaping the CNW’s editorial content and strategies. The publication established workflows, acquisition pathways and social media kits before test-launching the newsletter as a six-part email series.
Newsletter open rate achieved
Developed newsletter as revenue tool and secured initial sponsorship
Ongoing education about changes in the media landscape is vital for every newsroom. Sales training and insights into market innovations aren't always accessible, and most teams don't have the time to make major changes day to day. This program helps newsrooms clearly understand where the industry is headed and offers tools that are actually useful.
Laura Miller, managing editor
From these initial sends, the team learned it needed to broaden its outreach and contact list to include subscribers aligned with its general-interest focus rather than insider professional contacts and media peers. By the end of the Accelerator, CNW had developed established newsletter production workflows and gained deeper insight into its audience that lends itself to content optimization, both of which the team can replicate and expand upon as they explore an event series and scale the newsletter.