Happy Charlotte Ledger Month

Throughout March, we're celebrating our birthday and highlighting our mission — and setting an ambitious goal you can help us achieve

On behalf of The Charlotte Ledger, I wish you a happy Charlotte Ledger Month.

This month, The Ledger is celebrating its 4th birthday — four full years of groundbreaking original, local journalism delivered by email newsletter to what are now about 17,000 of our neighbors here in Charlotte.

We generally don’t like talking about ourselves and calling attention to our achievements, because we are not narcissists. But if we don’t beat our own chests, who will?

So we are declaring March to be Charlotte Ledger Month.

Throughout March, in addition to the usual emails you’re accustomed to receiving from us, you’ll be taken behind the scenes of our operation, understand better what we are doing with The Ledger and why, learn about changes in the media industry and hear from fellow readers about why they support our work.

And there will be a contest, prizes and perhaps a 4th birthday party — with beer and wine on us.

For March, we are announcing an ambitious goal of reaching 2,500 paying Ledger members. We’re calling it — see if you think this is catchy — “The Drive to 25(00).”

As of this morning, we are at 2,408 members. I’m no mathematician, but I think that leaves 92 net new subscribers as the goal for the month. Help us get there, and you could win a few free months of The Ledger or swag such as Harris Teeter gift cards and a handsome Ledger coffee mug. And if we hit 2,500 members by March 31, we’ll invite all members to a Ledger birthday celebration in April or May — in what will likely be the most enjoyable 4th birthday party you have ever attended.

➡️ If you like what we’re creating with The Ledger, can you help us out this month — and in turn help our community be served with better, more reliable information?

We want to celebrate and highlight what we are building with The Ledger, thank those who are contributing to our success and continue to grow so we can do more of what our readers say they love: learning about our community from a trusted, responsible and forward-looking source.

We’ve never done anything like this before, so who knows how it might work out. But in addition to March being Charlotte Ledger Month (as well as Women’s History Month), the internet also tells us that it is National Optimism Month — so we’re confident it will work out great.

Here’s the plan:

◼️ Every Thursday in March, we’ll have a newsletter devoted to some aspect of our operation. We’re going to peel back the onion, open the kimono … whatever metaphor you choose, we’re going to tell you how this operation runs — the business strategy behind it, what we’re good at and what we’re not, who makes this operation go and our place in the local media landscape. We profile other Charlotte businesses all the time, and now we’re turning the spotlight on ourselves. (Our usual Thursday newsletter, Transit Time, will return in April.)

◼️ Referral contest. We always appreciate it when people tell us they are telling their friends about The Ledger. That’s the main way we have grown. This month, we’ll reward you for leading others to us. Throughout the month of March, if you use the blue “Share” button from any of our newsletters to tell people about The Ledger, and someone signs up as a free or paid subscriber because of it, you’ll get credit. That includes posting on social media, so you can use the “Share” button to post on Facebook or Twitter, or copy the link to LinkedIn or to an email.

At the end of the month, for every 1 paid subscriber or 5 free subscribers you send our way, we’ll comp you 1 month of The Ledger (a $9 value!), up to a maximum of 3 months (a $27 value!). In addition, the top 3 referrers will receive some swag: a Ledger coffee mug, a $10 Harris Teeter gift card and some Charlotte Ledger pens!

We will track referrals using Substack’s system, so to get credit, you have to use the “Share” button, or the link that it generates. We’ll run occasional leaderboards. If you’re posting to social media, an effective message might be something like: “I read The Charlotte Ledger and so should you. Sign up with this link!”

◼️ Other tidbits. We’ll sprinkle other reminders in an unobtrusive way throughout the month — testimonials, factoids, small features. We’ll track the (hoped-for) progress in the “Drive to 25(00)” in a recurring thermometer.

We’re proud of our journalism, the way we do business and the vision we’re implementing. We’re creating a modern local company focused on making Charlotte better by improving access to high-quality information. We’re going to elaborate on that this month.

We stand on the side of facts and fairness and honesty. And we stand against many of the practices that have sadly become rampant in our industry … like clickbait, SEO tricks, pop-up ads and autoplay videos, weird food fixations and customer-unfriendly schemes.

Judging by our growth over the last four years, people like our approach:

The Charlotte Ledger published its first issue on March 11, 2019. It went to four people. By the second issue, the distribution list had grown to 114 people. Today, it is at 16,916, which is the total of free and paying subscribers.

But there’s more we can do.

How you can help

If you share our goals, here are a few ways you can support our work:

1. Join as a paying subscriber. Many of you already have — not quite 2,500, but we’re close.

2. Upgrade to a Premium membership. Premium memberships are $379/year and come with paid subscriptions for up to 6 people, and we publicly thank you or your company monthly in The Ledger (if you’re OK with that). If you feel led to help us at an even higher amount, click on the “$379” on the Premium membership box and fill in how much you’d like to give.

3. Send a story tip. Our readers are our eyes and ears. Have a question about something? Know something that might make a good Ledger story? Almost all of our top stories over the years have come from readers (not from press releases). Email us at editor@cltledger.com.

4. Tell your friends about us. Tell them, “You should really subscribe.” Highlight our articles on social media. Use the “Share” button (see above) to get credit.

5. Give a gift subscription. Know someone who might like a Ledger membership? Send it as a gift — for a birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas or whenever. You can schedule its delivery.

6. Become a newsletter sponsor. If your company would like to sponsor editions of our main Ledger, Ways of Life or Fútbol Friday, email support@cltledger.com for more information.

7. Become a podcast sponsor. We have a locally focused weekly podcast — cleverly named The Charlotte Ledger Podcast — that is growing in listenership. Email support@cltledger.com for more information on sponsoring it.

8. Post an event on our events board. For $50, you can list an event and get it in the newsletter in front of our 17,000 readers.

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We are thankful for the support of so many people in Charlotte who have helped get us to where we are today. And we look forward to celebrating continued successes with you.

Thanks.

—Tony Mecia, founder, The Charlotte Ledger

The Ledger’s three full-timers — Managing Editor Cristina Bolling, Staff Writer Lindsey Banks and Executive Editor Tony Mecia — plot strategy over breakfast last year.