Overview:

Two years after launching a digital public safety and crime publication in Berkeley, California, publisher Emilie Raguso was making incredible strides, quickly achieving sustainability and building up a community of financial supporters. But as a one-woman show, Raguso needed support to take her audience development efforts to the next level.

With a sustainability grant from LION Publishers in hand, The Berkeley Scanner enlisted the services of BlueLena last year to begin leveraging automations, AI-assisted reader revenue campaigning and strategic support, growing the publication’s audience and sustainable, recurring revenue significantly within months.

The challenge 

When Emilie launched The Berkeley Scanner in 2022, she knew it was “a huge leap of faith.” A former crime reporter who had spent the last 10 years as a reporter and editor at Berkeleyside, Raguso saw the potential in starting a publication focused on public safety and crime, a beat that never sleeps. She set up a landing page to begin collecting email addresses in preparation for launch and at the advice of an advisor, added an option for future readers to make a donation. “Something like 200 to 300 people immediately gave money,” Raguso said. “That was a huge vote of confidence.” The trust Raguso had built with readers over the years was evident, and after she began publishing in the fall of 2022, it only took a couple of months to exceed 500 supporters. 

In addition to creating trusted, high quality journalism, Raguso’s initial audience development strategy included an aggressive approach to search engine optimization, a daily email newsletter and regular posting on social media. She used open source content management system Ghost to power her website, and relied on its built-in reader revenue tools to begin growing her supporter base, asking readers to sign on as members or give one-time donations to power the publication, which achieved sustainability within just a few months. 

But after nearly two years of hard work, Raguso felt audience development hitting a plateau, and realized she needed help — both strategic guidance and capacity — to further The Berkeley Scanner’s growth. “I knew there was more work to do, but I needed help to figure it out,” she said. “There were things on my wishlist, but I didn’t have time to prioritize and pull everything together.” After receiving a LION Publishers sustainability grant, she signed on with BlueLena in August 2024, eager to use technology and new strategies to accelerate The Scanner.

The strategy 

Beginning in fall 2024, BlueLena worked with Raguso to build upon her audience development strategy, refining the organization’s value propositions, calls-to-action and messaging themes, and proposing tactics to better engage with readers at each state of the audience funnel. 

Audience development strategies included: 

  • Launching a new popup for newsletter signups
  • Refining the publication’s newsroom and donor value propositions, and ensuring they are reflected in on-site messaging, calls-to-action and fundraising campaigns 
  • A donation history analysis to inform membership strategy and pricing 
  • A six email, 30-day automated welcome series to connect with new readers and invite them to become members (an update and expansion of The Scanner’s previous four-email series) 
  • More frequent fundraising messaging, beginning with a birthday campaign to celebrate The Scanner’s second anniversary
  • A five-email, 90-day automated new member series to thank and retain new supporters 
A new popup launched on theberkleyscanner.com in late 2024 helped double the size of the publication’s email list in six months.

The Scanner’s first fundraising campaign done in collaboration with BlueLena recognized the organization’s two-year anniversary with a two-email campaign in September. Fundraising efforts continued in November and December with an eight-email end-of-year campaign and in May with a four-email spring campaign, both crafted with support from BlueLena and artificial intelligence, and fine-tuned by Raguso. “We used AI to get the bare bones, and then I personalized it myself, and I thought that went really well,” Raguso said. “With BlueLena’s help, I was able to refine what my message and my story is and what I’m bringing to people, in a way that is articulated better than what I had done before.” 

End-of-year email fundraising campaigns converted new members and helped The Scanner increase monthly recurring revenue 9% year over year.

The results 

After six months of working with BlueLena, new strategies and added capacity have helped The Berkeley Scanner realize measurable growth in the size of its audience and in reader revenue. 

Measurements of growth include: 

  • Email signups have skyrocketed, doubling the size of The Scanner’s email list between November, 2024 and May, 2025
  • Monthly recurring revenue, and overall reader revenue are both up 10% year over year, through the first quarter of 2025

A year ago, Raguso was wondering if she’d hit a cap on how many readers would sign up for her email list, or become supporters. “I really had felt the plateau and I wondered if this was as far as I could go, or whether my list could get bigger,” Raguso said. “It’s been amazing to see the results.” 

As Raguso looks ahead to the third anniversary of The Scanner, she’s excited to have a stronger audience development foundation in place, a more thoughtful marketing plan and many new projects on the horizon. She’s currently finalizing a reacquisition automation to connect with former donors and try to earn back their support, and is eager to review insights from a recent audience survey. “I’m really excited about all the projects that are underway and still to come. “There are still plenty of strategies that will bear fruit, but I think in these last few months we’ve really laid the groundwork.”

About BlueLena

BlueLena is a strategy consulting and audience management platform founded in 2020 to support the sustainability of independent local media. By combining cutting-edge technology with expert-driven services, BlueLena helps over 250 news organizations across North America develop and manage subscription, membership, and donation models. Its unique shared-resource management approach provides publishers, regardless of size, with access to enterprise-level tools and personalized support, enabling them to focus on high-quality journalism while building loyal, revenue-generating audiences. 

BlueLena is majority employee-owned, and backed by investors including Automattic (the parent company of WordPress), the Local Media Association, and Old Town Media.