BlueLena Advisory creates audience growth practice with Phillip Smith as Principal Consultant.

CARY, N.C. – September 30, 2026 – BlueLena announced the newest expansion of BlueLena Advisory, its strategy consulting division for independent and nonprofit news organizations, with the addition of Phillip Smith as Principal Consultant and the launch of a dedicated top-of-funnel audience growth practice.

Smith will lead customized engagements to help publishers identify and reach new audiences, accelerate newsletter acquisition, strengthen conversion pathways and develop repeatable systems for sustained growth.

This new practice expands BlueLena Advisory’s portfolio of specialized strategy services. Initially focused on fundraising systems, major gifts and development operations, Advisory recently broadened its scope to include earned revenue, advertising, sponsorship and events. Smith’s practice brings dedicated expertise to the start of the audience-to-revenue funnel, helping publishers systematically identify and acquire readers who value their journalism.

“Every revenue strategy begins with the same fundamental requirement: reaching more readers and developing a direct relationship with them,” said Daniel Williams, CEO of BlueLena. “Phillip has built a successful, industry-leading practice around helping publishers approach audience growth with greater discipline, experimentation and accountability. Adding his expertise to BlueLena Advisory gives our publishers access to specialized support across the entire journey, from finding a reader for the first time to developing that relationship into long-term engagement and financial support.”

A systematic approach to developing audiences

Smith has more than 20 years of experience across journalism, technology and audience development. Through Journalism Growth Lab, he coaches independent publishers and journalism founders on audience growth, working hands-on with their teams on operational strategy, growth experiments, and paid acquisition.

“I believe the publishers that succeed are the ones that make growth a habit: finding more of the people who value their work, building a direct relationship with them, and running small experiments to learn what’s working. Keep doing that and growth becomes something you can plan around.”

Smith directed the Google News Initiative Pre-launch Lab from 2020 to 2025, and as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford he adapted Lean Startup methods for journalists and independent publishers. That background shapes how he coaches. Each engagement starts by sizing the publisher’s market and setting a growth target the market can realistically support. From there, teams design small experiments with a clear pass-or-fail threshold before any money is spent, and judge the results by what happens after the signup: whether new readers open, stick around and eventually give.

From experimentation to sustainable and repeatable growth

Through BlueLena Advisory, Smith will work directly with publishers to set clear audience growth priorities, define success metrics and establish ongoing experimentation and measurement.

Each engagement will be tailored to the organization’s audience, market, resources and technology, and typically cover:

• Setting quarterly audience priorities and measurable goals, and choosing which channels are worth testing first.
• Growing registered readers by finding where readers drop off between a first visit and signing up, then improving the path from subscriber to member or donor.
• Shaping paid acquisition strategy: where to spend, what the ad should promise, and how to judge results beyond cost per signup, with campaigns run by BlueLena’s in-house team.
• Running small experiments with clear pass-or-fail thresholds, and coaching the team to decide what to stop, what to scale, and how to keep testing after the engagement ends.

An accomplished industry leader in audience acquisition

Smith’s work at Journalism Growth Lab has shown that having a clear strategy and a discipline around  experimentation can deliver significant audience and revenue results.

For example, Journalism Growth Lab recently supported several publishers on:

• Restarting newsletter growth after an apparent plateau, using both organic and paid marketing efforts
• Undertaking audience acquisition on third-party social platforms, where typically publishers fail to convert followers into registered readers
• Experimenting with new top-of-funnel audience efforts to open up new pathways to readers and supporters
• Tracking the return on investment of these efforts over time, as readers are asked to become financial supporters

These programs reflect a broader philosophy that prioritizes audience growth as part of a sustainable publishing strategy. Smith’s coaching model links acquisition to engagement and revenue, focusing on improving newsletter acquisition, monthly donor conversion, documenting experiments and building organizational confidence in decision-making.

BlueLena Advisory’s audience growth services are available immediately to independent and nonprofit publishers. To learn more, visit BlueLena.io

About Phillip Smith

Phillip Smith is a Principal Consultant with BlueLena Advisory and the founder of Journalism Growth Lab, where he coaches independent and nonprofit publishers on finding new readers and turning them into subscribers, members and donors. He has coached newsrooms through the American Journalism Project, Institute for Nonprofit News, Lenfest Expert Network and LION Publishers. He is based in Napa, California.

About BlueLena Advisory

BlueLena Advisory is BlueLena’s strategy consulting division, providing senior-level expertise and implementation support to independent and nonprofit news organizations. The practice helps publishers develop sustainable growth and revenue systems spanning audience development, fundraising, membership, major gifts, advertising, sponsorship, events, corporate partnerships and other revenue diversification strategies. BlueLena Advisory works with individual publishers, foundations, associations and journalism support organizations through customized engagements, structured programs, training and industry-wide initiatives.