How they did it: Top content marketing strategies from niche publishers
Where are niche media leaving money on the table?
The 2025 Niche Revenue Survey identified Content Marketing as one of the most under-developed revenue sources.
The top publishers are creating better, simplified packages in four key areas:
1. The Newsletter first model
2. Press release distribution
3. Upselling video
4. Lead generation that provides direct leads
In the best cases, niche media also turn their advertisers into thought leaders – or in the case of B2C, community celebrities – and supply ongoing client-owned content. At the 2025 Accelerating Content Marketing roundtable, NPB’s publisher invited publishers to share and discuss their models, what’s working and questions for the group.
About the survey
When asked which revenue sources of 18 in the survey were up flat or down, most media that sell content marketing said sales were up.
But out of 83 validated niche publishers in the survey, only 43 sold content marketing.
Why is this number surprising?
Content marketing is in demand, raises prices by providing a high value product, utilizes in-house expertise, and can leverage all of the distribution channels. It is no surprise that some of the leaders in this category – but not all – are online-only with a need to create high value products and packages.
Still, only half media companies that sell content marketing get more than 10% of revenues from this source. So what are the top performing niche media companies doing right?
Interviews with top performers show how most niche publishers could sell a lot more
Strategies from top performers interviewed showed what increased the total value of sales:
- Build the owned – email – audience and include in distribution
- Add Video
- Put content expertise into the value proposition
- Offer advertisers exclusivity by limiting number of products sold
- Produce client-owned content they can use in their own channels
- Provide lead generation – advertisers get emails or contact opportunity
- Offer turnkey press release distribution
- Get the Core business model right: Exclusive audience with significant purchasing power
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The newsletter-first model
Because newsletters are a higher value distribution platform, a couple of the most successful models utilized a newsletter-first model.
In the first example from Justin Pardee, publisher of Raincross Gazette, content marketing is used to support the top $30,000 tier, of email is sold in in three tiers, all based on annual sales. All include some content marketing, but the second tier priced at $10,000 is also exclusive by industry.
The third tier, available to only five advertisers and priced at $30,000 includes a monthly piece of content generated by Pardee’s team. From the standpoint of a corporate marketer, the content itself may be worth $1000 and the distribution on the email list of $10,000 is a bargain at $15 per 1000. Plus, its exclusive by industry, limited to five, looks like the local news content, delivered to an opted-in local audience in an underserved news market, and, well, they don’t have to do anything more.
Raincross Gazette handles everything, so it starts looking like a really cost effective, easy to manage marketing program.
Fishing Tackle Retailer: Injecting brand stories into a curated newsletter
A second innovative example was shared by owner and publisher, Angie Thompson, who purchased Fishing Tackle Retailer two years ago.
The FishingTackleNewswire is a curated daily newsletter that goes to both fishing retailers and passionate high end anglers who want daily news about fishing in their inbox.
For $1,000 a year, corporate tackle manufactures can place as many announcements or product promos as they want into the daily newsletter. There are more or less 200 of these subscribers, and the program is managed by a full time editor.
2. The Press Release Model
A number of publishers have become interested in how they can sell press release as self-serve advertising, behaving more like a wire-service for their niche.
Others that don’t sell press releases – or offer pr distribution for a nominal fee – but are interested in ingesting more UG content, especially for high frequency newsletters.
One of the best examples of niche media selling press releases is SpaceNews. The print/online magazines provides a variety of options for advertisers to establish thought leadership via, Sponsored Content, Client Spotlight Webinars, Tech Watch Digital Spreads, Print Ad Features, SpaceNews Video Series, and Sponsored Webinars.
However, they also have a portal to ingest press releases, with packages that range run from $799 for one press release to $3400 for a package of 20, making the price per press release – and distribution – just $149.
The advertiser gets to see their press release in the 19,000 email list, on the home page page of SpaceNews for three days, and in their RSS feeds.
The beauty of this model, however, in an ecosystem where content marketing is typically high-touch is that the publisher barely has to do anything. The advertiser selects the package, uploads the content or fill out a form, and inputs a credit card. There are no writers, interviews, messaging experts, sales people or invoicing involved. With the exception of an editor that looks at the copy and makes suggestions, it is entirely hands free, and the packages are one of the more popular products.
Industry Dive’s Press Release Model
For proof of concept, we often turn to Industry Dive, perhaps the biggest fish in the B2B online-only media business. As noted in our report The Confounding Simplicity of Industry Dive, their revenue model has always been disciplined and spare. In short, they only do a couple of things, but do them well.
One is the self-serve press release portal.
Each online Dive is job title based, in addition to residing within a substantial B2B niche, so the audience will have significant purchasing power. After selling for $300,000 plus to an events company a few years ago, they have grown from 26 to 36 publications, still with a small team. There are only two editorial employees per media, and the rest is centralized.
However, each publication has its own DiveWire. Primarily oriented to ingest niche news, the press releases sell for just $289 a month for Dives that are mature.
3. The Video Model
Video content marketing is one way to both satisfy audience demand and also raise the value – and thus the price – of content marketing sales. This is especially true for niche publishers whose audience is interested in new products – such as innovative building technology or eco-friendly landscaping – along with B2C content with strong purchase intent, such as “what to do with your kids in Cincinnatti.”
For niche media who don’t have these skills sets in house, a great model is Parents Canada, a company that built four video products with minimal upfront investment by partnering with a local videography company. The interviewer/spokesperson is a product reviewer from editorial, and the studio – if its not an on-location video product – is the publisher’s house.
Synkd.io on selling video at events
Another take on producing B2B videos came from Tom Shoen, co-owner of Synked.io, a media company for landscapers. His partner simply takes an iPhone and tripod to events where advertisers have purchased booths. She interviews them on the spot, then the video shorts are sold in packages that distributed them across in multiple formats, and yes, TikTok has the most engagement and thus is one of the most valuable channels.
MBE Mag on Diverse Business Spotlights
A slightly different take is from MBE Mag, whose publisher Tanya Isley sells a landing page with a video and a lead-generating formfill to minority businesses. Isley’s company supplies a questionnaire to the the advertisers and hand-holds them through at remote video session, which she said, deepens relationships.
These videos are sold as packages and distributed by email to 16,000 subscribers along with the website and YouTube.
Builder Innovator’s Event-first, Video-First Model
A sophisticated approach comes from John Galante, President of AE Ventures, publisher Builder Innovator, a media company that started creating video at their own events.
For Builder Innovator, the annual event is the core revenue model. The on-staff producer brings equipment to the event, circumventing the over-priced hotel AV and operators. If the venue will not allow and outside crew to run the audio/video, Galante simply takes a pass and selects one that will.
Vendors at the event get a landing page with a video component in the Buyers Guide. There are also two higher end content marketing product, including HQ, which includes flying the producer to a corporate headquarters to film the video.
4. Lead generation – Sharing email leads with advertisers
The last model receiving more attention in 2025 are lead generation programs. For B2C companies this could mean finding a sponsor for a sweepstakes, contest or META giveaway that is specifically designed to collect emails.
For B2B Niche Publishers white papers, playbooks, and surveys provide the bait for email capture – and a sponsorable opportunity. In most cases the content for the playbooks can be reformatted from content the media has already produced.
The reason why these programs are called “lead generation” is that while to the media, the email capture builds the owned-audience, to the advertiser that email is a valuable lead.
Even if the media is paying, say, Facebook or LinkedIn to advertise an email-capture program, an advertiser will pay 3 to 5x of that cost for B2B leads(note: proper legal disclosures required).
So in effect, the niche media is building their email list – and generating revenue.
Industry Dive, mentioned earlier, has also doubled down on this model. They use their expertise on what content their B2B audience engages with on any of their 36 publications to create white papers and playbooks. Every Dive title has a “library” of these playbooks promoted in the top navigation bar on the website.
Since Dive publications set the industry standard with $369 million plus in online only sales, its telling that3 of the 5 links in their top navigation are designed to promote DIY content marketing programs: The Library of white papers, Press Releases, and Events, yet another form of ingested DIY content which sell for $1548 per event promoted.
