Wausau Pilot Monetizes Games with Local Sponsors

Wausau Pilot and Review, a local online publication in Wausau, Wisconsin, USA, recently launched games with PuzzleMe. The company sold puzzle sponsorships to local businesses, so their ads could appear right above the games solvers would spend 10 or more minutes on. We spoke with Shereen Siewert, founder of The Wausau Pilot and Review, about her journey with puzzles. 

I wanted to start with how you got into starting Wausau Pilot. I know you used to be on air and you were a reporter before that, so I just wanted to know how this came about for you. What was the spark?

I worked many years in radio, and I still have part-time work with Wisconsin Public Radio, but this is very separate from what I do there. I worked for the Wausau Daily Herald, the local newspaper, for quite a few years. Then I was with USA Today’s investigative team at a time when print newspapers were really starting their downward spiral. We saw so many layoffs and cuts in our community news. We saw newspapers here in Wisconsin shifting toward a more regional model, and a lot of the community news was going away.

It troubled me enough that I left the organization and worked for an alt-weekly print newspaper for a year as their news editor, but I was really dissatisfied with that too; there was such a lack of hard news and accountability reporting and I missed that. The community needs that. Ultimately, my husband encouraged me to look into launching my own news organization. As I did my research, I was lucky to have a friend who is wealthy and was able to donate a grant to get us started. I approached him with a business plan, and he granted us startup funds.

I launched this in March of 2017 as an online-only publication, just a one-woman operation at that time. I had already built up a pretty significant reputation as a journalist here in town; my name was well-known in the community. I had a lot of social media followers already and was able to capitalize on that to get the word out. We grew very quickly. Initially, we had a few hundred readers, which grew to a few thousand, and it wasn’t long before we had 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 people a day reading our publication, and I was able to add more staff.

Over the last few years, we’ve evolved into the community’s primary news source. The legacy newspaper has a very diminished presence here; they don’t even have a physical location or a local editor in Wausau. It’s very regionalized, and one of our two main local news channels also laid off pretty much their entire reporting staff. Because I grew up loving newspapers, I wish I could do a print edition, but it’s just not in the cards cost-wise. We’re trying to be what the city’s newspaper, the Wausau Daily Herald, once was, just delivered digitally. We do a lot of government accountability, school, election, business and crime reporting. Because we’re a nonprofit, we are free to everyone and rely on grants, donations from readers, and we supplement that with some advertising and underwriting.

Part of being the community’s newspaper is looking back at what the Wausau Daily Herald historically provided. Part of that isn’t just the hard news; it’s the community stuff. We publish obituaries three times a week for free – we don’t charge hundreds of dollars, because we have a sponsor who underwrites that as a community service. And part of having a community newspaper is offering some fun stuff, too, and that’s where the puzzles come in. I loved doing the crossword every day in my morning newspaper, and now I don’t get it at my house anymore.. We’re trying to replicate those things that people have been missing in a cost-effective way. For a long time, I’ve been looking to add a puzzle of some sort, a horoscope, and those kinds of things you used to get when your newspaper landed on your porch.

That’s why we decided to experiment with the puzzles and see how people liked them. In addition to that, we do a recipe of the week, a cocktail of the week, and a stargazing report every Friday. People love that stuff. Of course, most readers are drawn to the hard news, but the really engaged and loyal readers love those extra features. If we can make that work in a cost-effective way that isn’t a huge drain on our resources—not only money but also time—then that’s how it makes sense for us.

That’s a pretty cool story and a great ambition to replace the daily newspaper. What does your relationship with your audience look like? Is it primarily through social media or email? How do most people discover your content?

We have a large social media following, but I’ll be honest; our Facebook page is just a cesspool. The comments are awful, and it’s impossible to police that in a meaningful way. Time is a limited commodity when you have a tiny staff and monitoring comments is a full time job, even with a handful of volunteers who help us with it. We have a twice-a-day email that goes out to roughly 38,000 subscribers. One goes out at about 6:30 in the morning, the other at 5 o’clock. That’s a great way for us to showcase our top stories. The puzzle always goes in the morning email. It sometimes goes in the afternoon email. Some people just bookmark our page, and we also have an app, so people get content through the app too.

It sounds awesome. Other newsletter-focused companies find that games are really helpful for improving open and click rates because people open the newsletter specifically to find that section. It’s pretty cool that you’re doing that.

This morning, I forgot to post the puzzles in the morning email and people noticed – which tells me something about how much they enjoy it. I can tell you, the people who emailed me this morning about the puzzle not being there didn’t just send an email; they responded directly to the morning newsletter asking, “Where’s my puzzle?”

I wonder what the motivation was for starting the puzzles and games now? It’s been about six months since you started. What prompted the idea to take action?

It all started really when I was reading about The New York Times buying Wordle and how people are so addicted to those games. I thought it was a good time to try a game and see how it goes. I found you through a search. I looked at your page and the publications using your puzzle and wondered if it was something we could afford. That’s how I ended up reaching out. I love puzzles myself and I still play Wordle every morning.

On the creation side, are you personally creating the games? What was the decision-making process for which games to have and how often? I know there’s a Sunday crossword, which is thoughtful since people have more time on Sundays. Could you provide some insight into the thought process behind the final formats you chose?

I knew I wanted something like Wordle, so I did that, and also like the Spelling Bee from The New York Times, so I do the Word Flower. I know people love Sudoku, and I saw an example of someone who did an “impossible” Sudoku, and I thought that would be fun. Then I chose the Word Search. I wanted to start with a manageable amount, so four seemed like a good place to start. Those made sense to me, but that doesn’t mean I won’t look at others, like the jigsaw puzzle. Now that I have a workflow down that makes it easy, time-wise, to get those out, I may add another puzzle or two. Then I’ll make a big splash with readers and say, “Hey, we’re going to try this, tell us what you think.” It’s a good way to interact with them, too.

I’m interested in your relationship with your sponsors, particularly for other local businesses. Was there a pitch around selling the ad space around the puzzles? How does that work? I saw a restaurant advertising on the puzzle page recently.

I was talking with our marketing person and mentioned that the puzzles are doing really well and asked her to think about who might be a good sponsor. We have the ability to put a sponsor’s logo and an ad with the sponsorship. She thought of a business whose budget would work well. She had somebody in mind that she went to and said, “I think this is a good opportunity for you. It’s right within your budget, and people really like it.” It wasn’t a hard sell.

I also have another business I’m thinking about approaching. That’s how we do it. We think about what price point we need to make this work and what kind of business this aligns with. It helps to be a local business selling to a local advertiser. You already have a relationship; they’re familiar with you and your product. They probably play the puzzles themselves, or at least they’ve seen them, so they know people are seeing them. Having that local connection definitely matters.

“It helps to be a local business selling to a local advertiser. You already have a relationship; they’re familiar with you and your product. They probably play the puzzles themselves, or at least they’ve seen them, so they know people are seeing them.”

You said the puzzles are doing well. What does that mean to you exactly? What were you expecting to happen, and did they exceed your expectations? How do you measure that?

Users are engaged for a pretty long time. I also consider the fact that when the puzzle was missing, six people took the time to email me and say, “Where’s my puzzle?” That, to me, is a really good indicator that they’re enjoying it. The puzzles have become part of their daily routine.

“When the puzzle was missing, six people took the time to email me and say, ‘Where’s my puzzle?’ That, to me, is a really good indicator that they’re enjoying it.”

That makes a lot of sense. Finally, what’s your favorite thing about PuzzleMe?

The cool thing is just how it works. Once you have it down, it works great. I love that we can see analytics, which is important if you’re selling it to somebody. You can say, “Look, they’re spending four minutes on this page, and during that time, your ad is right there.” I’m really glad that you include those kinds of things.

“I love that we can see analytics, which is important if you’re selling it to somebody. You can say, “Look, they’re spending four minutes on this page, and during that time, your ad is right there.” I’m really glad that you include those kinds of things.”