Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hey all, I own half of an online news media website for my small town in northeast Indiana and we`re not getting too much revenue from advertisers. Now I don`t know the answer but I figure it`s one of several possibilities:

1.) Rates are too high
2.) Sales rep isn`t real keen on selling ads
3.) People are too accustom to the local newspaper (We are separate companies)

After asking around to other friends/business associates in different forums, an idea of "sponsoring" pages instead of just advertising might seem a bit more intriguing to businesses and I wanted to get some other feedback outside of my geographical area.

So here is an example: An advertiser could "sponsor" (advertise) a particular category such as the business section and be visible on ALL pages/articles in that category. Now their pageviews would be considerably lower than being on the home page and so would the cost, but their basically going to get more exposure by being right in the article(s) opposed to just once on the home page.

Keep in mind this is a VERY small town and the web is not a `normal` thing for most around here. Despite that we`re still seeing at least 4,000 pageviews per month. Not bad for a town of 1,600 in my opinion.

Thoughts? Ideas? Concerns? Favorite color?

-------------------------

Bob

What selling coupon space? It`s not the same as getting advertising, nor is it sponsoring pages.

You`re doing what I think is an idea waiting to happen in a big way. It`s the niche-market concept moving into a natural extension of the big papers slowly going downhill.

Another option is local classified ads, specific ONLY to your geographic area. Sell by the ad, by the word...whatever. I think lots of people are increasing disappointed with Monster.com, CareerBuilder, and so forth.

If you were to put a price on coupons, you`d also have a selling point to local businesses. They could advertise via the coupons that would be exclusive to your "paper," and track the success through customers redeeming the coupons? Maybe?

It looks like somebody put a lot of work into that site.
Yeeesssss I do. From the design, `geek stuff` and the ad creation, yes I have. Now the stories and what not ALL come from my editor. I owe her a lot for all of that work.

Can you expand to include other close by towns and try to tap into their advertising dollars?
We`re already looking into that, but considering there are roughly 80-90 businesses here in our town that we could hit up, I`d like to get them on board first. We`re lucky if we get 8 on there now. ;)

Do you know who is looking at your site? highschoolers? old folks? what they buy? what kind of stat`s do you  arm your sales people with?
D.) All of the above
I`ve heard from 80+ year old grandmas to the freshman in high school who checks in at least once a week. Our demographic is very very broad.

If you were to put a price on coupons, you`d also have a selling point to local businesses. They could advertise via the coupons that would be exclusive to your "paper," and track the success through customers redeeming the coupons? Maybe?
The coupon idea is something I`m trying to remind my sales lady. Advertisers need SOME sort of call to action. That way they can measure the success of their ad vs. revenue. Unfortunately we get the "I want my 83 bullet points, address, phone number, logo, business name and a little image in that 150 x 150 ad please." Uhhhhhhhh, no. Not gonna happen.

Gonick; as I read through the thread I noticed twice you mentioned your sales help, in a manner that I infer as you being disappointed with results, motivation.
you also say you talked to friends / business associates for input, I have to ask the question; have you gone personally out to the potential customers and gotten their input? maybe if you spent some time with a few they would tell you what they want. of course there is always the possibility you can`t provide that for them, but at least you would know what the hitch is.
I`d bet inside of a couple days of beating the pavement you would have the real world answer for your three questions. My experience in small towns is everyone knows someone that knows you so the entry should be easy.
I hate dealing with people I`d rather just hold up in the shop and make sawdust, but if I want to make this business work I must get out and get feedback from my customers. I`ll take credit for the designs but each item I sell is / was from a direct customer request. surprisingly satisfying one customers needs also satisfies many others as well.
trying to figure out what people want without letting them drive the product (in retrospect for me) is kind of like playing the lotto (there is a reason Artists starve). If you think about it, your trying to sell to people that run a business, they make decisions that they have to live with Successful or not. Giving them some input in the product may help them feel like it will be successful.It makes it feel like a partnership of sorts, lets them feel like they are leveraging themselves, with their expert knowledge of their industry.
Just a thought

WTGG,

Yes, you`re right. Getting that feedback is critical and I have a business meeting with all partners tonight to find out if our sales feedback is even being produced.

Our little venture is so different from most "businesses". This was started by four people all with full-time jobs because we were FED UP with our local paper. It now has taken off like wildfire readership-wise, but the sales are dismal.

So tonight I hope to hear "this new ad idea is great!" and "advertisers are going to be more receptive to this price/option than anything we`ve tried".

Keep your fingers/toes crossed for me. ;)

On the coupon thing, it`s your paper and you should be clear and absolute as to what limits are set on how coupons are presented. Tell the customers that they have a "strip of paper," for example and give the measurements. Or set up an online template and they can fill it in, with a preview.

It`s entirely up to them what they want to put on the coupon, but if it doesn`t fit, it doesn`t fit and that`s the end of it. Right?

Classifieds:
Would you be able to create an online form where people could fill in the fields and generate a classified ad? They`d have to make a payment (by word or ad, whatever) before the final "submit" button.

You could have repeating ads, offer discounts for continuous "space" where the same business would have the same space, but could change the ad at their convenience (with a monthly fee or something).

Craig,

Someone else in here mentioned classifieds and one concern of mine is that people are getting less and less interested in paying for classifieds because of sites like Craigslist and what not.

We`re still throwing that idea around, but we`re just not sure on pricing - if at all.

Chris,
My argument to the lessening interest in paid classifieds is that Craig`s List, Monster.com, CareeerBuilder.com, and all the rest are failing. From my own personal experience, two key failure points emerge:

• Free help-wanted ads return hundreds (if not thousands) of responses, making it nearly impossible for the potential employer to find the right person.
• Online classifieds take in such a huge geographic area, many times without any constraints, that "relevancy" now is fundamental.

Google entered the search market back when several other engines were dominant (e.g., Alta-Vista and Yahoo!). But Google took control of the entire business by being far more relevant in their results.

So too, local classifieds targeted ONLY to the local area in a local news journal like yours are exponentially more relevant to job-seekers and employers.

Keep in mind that "you get what you pay for," and that applies not only to free advice, but also to free advertising, samples, and so forth.

The value here is that the owner of a local 7-Eleven can pay for classified space and get responses only from people that a) want the job, and b) can actually get to the job.