How do I choose a niche for a local newsletter business?

I use a two-gate screen for any niche or audience. Gate one: can I acquire the audience cheaply? Gate two: will advertisers pay well to reach it? For any idea, I want to know which gate it fails.

Why do most niches fail?

Because cheap and valuable usually pull in opposite directions. An audience that's cheap to reach on Meta is often cheap because nobody wants to advertise to it.

55-plus is the exception I've found. My senior subscribers have cost about 20 to 40 cents, and I believe high-value advertisers like estate planners will pay well to reach them, though I haven't closed senior advertiser revenue yet. I call it 100 percent underused. Details in is a 55+ newsletter a good niche.

Which niches do I like besides seniors?

• Local business owners (B2B). Local B2B is gaining traction. A Meta ad targeting $1M+ local business owners landed three qualified leads quickly when an operator I work with replicated it in his market. See is a B2B local newsletter worth it.
• The biggest immigrant community in a large metro. In LA there are about 400,000 Vietnamese people. Almost every major immigrant community in a big city already has some media brand, but I want to see someone do it in a newsletter-and-creator format. I think engagement would be insanely high.
• The real estate industry. A media brand for real estate pros, a B2B play. A successful local person I talked to agreed it's a good idea. Execution is the hard part.

Which niches would I avoid?

National topics with no location hook. We tried a national senior newsletter and it didn't work. A national newsletter about home insurance gets nobody's interest. People care about their location, which is why I'd test any niche inside a place first.

Regular local media is still a good business, but it's crowded with excited new entrants.

How do I test a niche cheaply?

• Test it inside one location, never nationally first.
• Frame the ad around the place, even if the content is about the niche.
• Check gate one with real cost per subscriber.
• Check gate two by naming who would pay to reach these readers.
• Write down which gate it fails. If it fails either, move on.

The niche also decides who fronts it. I'm the face of my business-facing brand, while my local consumer newsletters are fronted by local people.