How 6AM City scales hyper-local content and community engagement with Sailthru
To scale without sacrificing authenticity, 6AM City needed a platform that could keep pace with its ambitions. That’s where Sailthru by Marigold came in.
6AM City is redefining local media by delivering city-specific news, events, and community stories through engaging, newsletters free of politics and divisive topics. With a growing portfolio of over 30 markets and a focus on locally-powered content, the brand connects readers with the best their cities have to offer, from happy hour guides to weekend events.
6AM City launched with a clear mission: help people spend their time, talent, and treasure locally. But expanding into too many markets without first building loyal readership came at a cost.
To grow smarter, the team needed a solution that could support fast expansion, integrate with their tech stack, and provide clear insight into what content and audiences were driving results.
With Sailthru, 6AM City built a repeatable process for launching and scaling city-specific newsletters. Using performance data to guide content and product decisions, they now manage dozens of newsletters across markets and verticals.
Key Tactics Included:
“We do most of our sending through APIs and build newsletters in a custom way inside our CMS. Sailthru still lets us capture the engagement data we need which isn’t always possible with other platforms.” — Ryan Heafy, Co-founder and COO, 6AM City”
Results:
As 6AM City launches in new cities like Orlando, Northern Virginia, and Knoxville, they are focused on warming up subscribers before launch. A sequence of four to eight pre-launch emails helps keep users engaged and familiar with the brand before daily sends begin.
They also extended their welcome journeys across all cities to reduce dormancy and improve long-term list health.
With Sailthru by Marigold, 6AM City isn’t just growing fast, they’re growing smart. The team uses Sailthru’s flexible tools and integrations to launch newsletters in new cities, often overnight, while maintaining a reader-first approach to content. They rely on real data, not algorithms, to understand what resonates and optimize engagement through custom-built onboarding flows, smart segmentation, and deep insight into true audience behavior.
From API-based sending to expert deliverability guidance, Sailthru gives them what they need to stay nimble, scale sustainably, and keep their lists healthy. That way, they can focus on what they do best: connecting communities through content that brings people closer to where they live.