Looking for a bit guidance on growing a local newsletter.

I’m no stranger when it comes to growing a newsletter, and I recently sold mine back in November, but after I was tasked with creating a local newsletter by the media house I work for I’m a little stumped.

For a bit more background, I work at a media house that owns a radio station, a print magazine, and a podcast network and most recently, a new local newsletter. The problem I’m having is growth. I found it much easier to grow a newsletter by using twitter and people on this community, but this is a little different now that I have to target an audience of 200k -300k people in a tiny city and I’m finding that a lot easier said than done.

Here is what I’ve tried

• Radio Ads (free because we own the radio)
• Partnering with local coffee shops (sign up and get a discount on your coffee)
• Facebook ads (only did 1 campaign, but wasn’t really successful, hoping to try again with a lead add)
• I hop on radio twice a week and discuss the parts of the newsletter.

I’ve kinda hit a brick wall at this point in time I’m hoping for suggestions. I do want to try a referral system, but only after I migrate the newsletter to a new ESP that supports one. Have also been thinking about some sort of lead magnet.

Any other tips and ideas to grow this would be super helpful.