At 6AM City, innovation is a cornerstone of our business model and company culture. We’re continually learning from our audience, adapting to emerging trends, and refining our means of delivering hyper-local content. Most recently, we innovated our launch approach with the debut of our 29th newsletter product, NOVAtoday, in Northern Virginia.
Collaboration in Action: The Team Behind NOVAtoday’s Speedy Launch
On April 11, 6AM City launched NOVAtoday after an accelerated timeline of under six weeks. Typically, our launch process takes at least 90 days, but forming a dedicated working group allowed us to consolidate operations and drastically reduce the timeline.
“We knew there was an opportunity to streamline our launch processes and maximize contributions from our existing team of seasoned, tenured editors and marketing professionals,” explains VP of Editorial Erin McPherson. “With input from our growth marketing team and audience development specialists, we pulled team members together into a working group for a project sprint. Each contributor produced approximately one piece of content per week over about five weeks, and we were able to build out a rolling bank of web articles for the marketing team to use pre-launch, and for our local editor to use over the first 12 weeks post-launch. As a result, we identified that we could confidently collapse a launch timeline that previously took 90 days into 30 days, and are now scaling this strategy to future new market launch plans — including 865today and ORLtoday, coming in June.”
Brianna Williams, 6AM City Senior Product Editor and lead of the NOVAtoday working group, emphasizes that thorough research on Northern Virginia was a crucial first step before beginning content creation. She says, “We spent a long time familiarizing ourselves with each city within Northern Virginia and the greater region before beginning to create content. From there, we published articles in batches, adding fresh stories to NOVAtoday’s website each week leading up to the launch date. While the team worked on many evergreen articles like a guide to upcoming concerts or how to use Arlington’s “GetGreen” app, we also kept an eye on timely local trends and news — which is how we ended up with an article on Alex Ovechkin nearing an all-time scoring record.”
Working group member and Senior Product Editor Michael Beausoleil describes the experience of launching NOVAtoday as “exciting and busy,” emphasizing the crucial role of collaboration. “The launch group comprised writers across the country, but we had team meetings that were highly beneficial. This is where we shared a lot of our findings and asked questions. It helped the group develop a clearer understanding of the NOVA region. We discussed everything from the type of history that’s prominent in the area to the slang locals use and the type of food locals eat.”
From Strategy to Subscribers: Inside NOVAtoday’s Pre-Launch Growth Tactics
While editorial team members researched and created content, VP of Marketing Liam Whalen explains that his growth marketing team laid the foundation for every digital touchpoint of NOVAtoday — from developing paid ad campaigns and driving early subscriber acquisition to building out the website and setting up key automations that would ensure a smooth and scalable launch.
One of the driving forces behind NOVAtoday’s pre-launch momentum was Growth Marketing Coordinator Santana Lucas. She worked closely with the editorial team to identify content with proven appeal, building data-informed campaigns that attracted the right readers before the first newsletter ever hit inboxes.
“To grow our subscriber list before the launch, we collaborated closely with the editorial team to select engaging content that would capture attention and encourage sign-ups,” Lucas explains. “We analyzed past performance data to identify which types of content had performed best in ads and used those insights to guide our content selection. This allowed us to run targeted content ads before launch, giving potential readers a clear sense of the content they could expect from NOVAtoday newsletters.”
Whalen adds, “Historically, Meta has been the primary channel for our subscriber acquisition through efforts we know work and continuously testing out new ad variations, especially when launching and expanding into new markets. However, for this market, we aimed to diversify our acquisition sources while ensuring we continued to attract highly engaged users to our ecosystem and have seen great success.”
The Growth Marketing team’s work didn’t stop at acquisition. As subscribers came in, automations were triggered to deliver welcome emails and segment audiences. These early efforts helped ensure that NOVAtoday launched with not just an audience, but an engaged and growing one.
Laying the Groundwork: Strategic Partnerships
An integral part of 6AM City’s launch strategy is identifying early support to build a solid business foundation before the first story is even published. Before the editorial and marketing teams kicked off their creative efforts for NOVAtoday, 6AM City’s leadership team and sales executives were already laying the groundwork through strategic partnerships. By securing launch collaborations with influential local stakeholders like Met Park and JBG Smith, the team ensured that NOVAtoday would be both sustainable and profitable from day one.
6AM City COO Ryan Heafy emphasizes the importance of these early partnerships: “Sustainability is key in launching a media company anywhere, and advertising partnerships allow us to establish early revenue traction, which is key to long term sustainability.”
These strategic alliances do more than generate revenue — they help create instant community credibility and demonstrate that NOVAtoday is here to serve and support the region. Partners like Met Park and JBG Smith bring both reach and relevance, enabling the NOVAtoday brand to resonate with key audiences from the outset.
The strength of 6AM City’s national presence also plays a vital role. With successful markets across the country, the company enters new cities with a proven model and a recognizable reputation. Heafy notes that “regional proximity to our other markets, including the overlap of audience and advertisers, allows us to seamlessly expand existing relationships.”
Redefining Expansion: NOVAtoday as the New Launch Model
At the time of this article’s publication, NOVAtoday is approaching its 30-day milestone since launch — and the momentum is undeniable. Focused on the communities of Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax, as well as surrounding counties, the daily newsletter delivers a curated selection of local news, events, and lifestyle content in a skimmable, five-minute read. True to 6AM City’s editorial philosophy, NOVAtoday does not cover crime or politics, providing readers with a refreshing alternative to the typically divisive narratives that dominate regional media.
Ava Wojnowski is 6AM City’s full-time NOVAtoday newsletter editor who was onboarded during the time of the newsletter’s launch. With the support of the NOVAtoday working group, Wojnowski was fully trained in her role over the course of two weeks + now provides the boots-on-the-ground coverage that is a mainstay of 6AM City newsletter products.
This hands-on editorial presence, combined with a carefully coordinated growth strategy, is paying off. NOVAtoday has already surpassed 19,000 subscribers within its first month — a milestone that reflects not only audience appetite but also the strength of the collaborative engine behind the launch.
More than just another market launch, NOVAtoday represents a pivotal evolution in 6AM City’s approach to expansion — one that blends strategic innovation with proven operational excellence. By integrating lessons learned from previous launches with these new tactics, NOVAtoday sets a new standard for how 6AM City enters and thrives in new markets.
Curious about NOVAtoday, or any other market we’ve launched? Follow along by subscribing here – and check out and subscribe to all of our markets here.