BlueLena Advisory welcomes Belinda Lush

Belinda Lush

CARY, N.C. — BlueLena today announced that Belinda Lush has joined BlueLena Advisory, its strategy consulting division for independent and nonprofit news organizations, as principal consultant. Lush will work with publishers in the United States and Asia-Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand.

Her addition brings senior-level reader revenue and audience growth expertise to an Advisory team that has expanded from fundraising and development to earned revenue and audience acquisition.

"Audiences grow and revenue follows when readers believe the journalism is worth paying for and publishers make it easy to say yes," Lush said. "Pricing, the paywall, acquisition and engagement touchpoints all matter, and they work best when a small team can run them week after week. BlueLena has spent six years helping independent publishers build those systems. I'm looking forward to bringing what I have learned at publishers in New Zealand, the UK and around the world to newsrooms on both sides of the Pacific."

Reader revenue experience across publishers and markets

Lush has over 25 years of media experience, working with publishers in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Most recently, she served as director of reader revenue at Stuff, New Zealand's largest news publisher, where she doubled revenue annually for three years and launched Neighbourly News, a network of 18 local news sites.

Her previous roles include general manager digital customer at NZME, commercial director at Lonely Planet, and digital CRM manager at the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom.

This appointment reunites her with Daniel Williams. She previously served as executive vice president, Solutions & Strategy at LEAP Media Solutions, which he co-founded and led before launching BlueLena in 2020. LEAP supported over six hundred U.S. publishers in growing print and digital audiences and revenue.

"I worked alongside Belinda at LEAP and saw first-hand how she helps publishers grow audiences and revenue," said Williams, CEO of BlueLena. "She knows what it takes to make reader revenue part of how a newsroom runs every day. Publishers in the U.S. will benefit greatly from that deep and varied experience, and publishers in Australia, New Zealand and the wider region gain a globally experienced, senior adviser working in their own time zone."

Working with publishers in two regions

Designed programs and individually-tailored services will cover:

• Reader revenue strategy: Choosing the right mix of subscription, membership and donation models, and setting targets the market can support.
• Pricing and packaging: What to charge, and how offers are presented.
• Acquisition and conversion: Improving the path from casual reader to registered reader to paying supporter.
• Retention: Onboarding, engagement, renewals and reducing churn.
• Team and operating model: The roles, routines and reporting a small team needs to grow reader revenue week to week.

BlueLena Advisory's strategic consulting and reader revenue services with Belinda Lush are now available to publishers in the United States and Asia-Pacific.

To learn more, visit BlueLena.io or submit an inquiry here.