Advertising, Audio/Video, B2C, Member Profiles

How Active Norcal builds, prices & packages 20 million social follows

Alisa Cromer May 27, 2023

When Zach O’Brien attended his first Niche Media Conference ten years ago, he was inspired to found ActiveNorcal, a bi-monthly magazine on outdoor activities in Northern California. O’Brien enlisted other family members and used his background working in PR for the NBA. Originally he posted all the articles on Facebook when the magazine was published.

By 2016, however, O’Brien noticed something unexpected. While the magazine circulation was 10,000 every other month, the website traffic had 50,000 visitors.

“We were putting 99% of our effort into the print magazine but getting quadruple the unique visitors online. A digital native, he decided to discontinue the physical magazine and transition his customer base to an all-digital business model.

There was just one catch.

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Categories: Advertising, Audio/Video, B2C, Member Profiles

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

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

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

The confounding simplicity of Industry Dive

The confounding simplicity of the Industry Dive model is more strategic than it looks. Here are lessons learned about the formula.

Alisa Cromer January 26, 2024

Four publishers who turned newsletters into a core revenue stream

To turn newsletter revenues into 30% or more of company revenues requires a shift in thinking. These four publishers with major revenues from newsletters get three things right:

A. Content/frequency/audience B. Products, and C. Techstack

Four publishers who get these three factors right explained how they built their models.

Alisa Cromer July 2, 2025

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