Low-Cost Marketing/Promotion Ideas for Hyperlocal Sites

[MFerrier]

What promotional ideas have you used to get the word out about your
community site?

I've launched LocallyGrownNews.com almost two months ago and am
growing traffic on the site. I printed postcards about the site that I
distribute around town and at events. I'd like to develop other no
cost/low-cost promotional ideas to drive traffic to the site and also
to build registrations/users to the site.

Some ideas I've been tossing around:
1. Develop a weekly drawing for discount coupons/gift cards.
2. Develop monthly drawing for larger prize pack.
3. Reward frequent posters of user-generated content with a token gift/
badge on their profile
4. Run a contest for designs for the site's t-shirt with local college
students.

Anyone have anything else they've tried successfully?

Thanks,
Michelle Ferrier
Proprietor
LocallyGrownNews.com

[Steven Clift]

Sign people up on paper at community events, farmers markets, etc. to
receive a weekly e-mail newsletter update.

We've found nothing more effective for our local Issues Forums. In our
case we are signing people up for the forum and not an e-newsletter.

More:
http://e-democracy.org/signup

Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
  Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
  Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
  New Tel: +1.612.234.7072

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[Michelle Ferrier]

Great ideas Steve! I'd been thinking about that poster/tab idea...particularly at local colleges and universities and coffee shops. I'll get on designing that one right away!
Michelle

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Clift [mailto:cl...@e-democracy.org]
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 10:54 AM
To: 'MFerrier'
Cc: 'Journalism That Matters'
Subject: Re: {JTM} Low-Cost Marketing/Promotion Ideas for Hyperlocal Sites

Sign people up on paper at community events, farmers markets, etc. to receive a weekly e-mail newsletter update. We've found nothing more effective for our local Issues Forums. In our case we are signing people up for the forum and not an e-newsletter. More: http://e-democracy.org/signup Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com   Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org   Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy   New Tel: +1.612.234.7072 On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 7:43 AM, MFerrier wrote: > What promotional ideas have you used to get the word out about your > community site? > > I've launched LocallyGrownNews.com almost two months ago and am > growing traffic on the site. I printed postcards about the site that I > distribute around town and at events. I'd like to develop other no > cost/low-cost promotional ideas to drive traffic to the site and also > to build registrations/users to the site. > > Some ideas I've been tossing around: > 1. Develop a weekly drawing for discount coupons/gift cards. > 2. Develop monthly drawing for larger prize pack. > 3. Reward frequent posters of user-generated content with a token gift/ > badge on their profile > 4. Run a contest for designs for the site's t-shirt with local college > students. > > Anyone have anything else they've tried successfully? > > Thanks, > Michelle Ferrier > Proprietor > LocallyGrownNews.com > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Journalism That Matters" group. > To post to this group, send email to jtm...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to jtmlist+u...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jtmlist?hl=en. > >

[Scott Durham]

Over the long-run, the best thing you can do is attend local community meetings and provide coverage for the topics that come up there. First of all, they're an awesome source of content and leads on larger stories. And second, the meetings are run by community leaders that know a lot of other people. Being there and introducing yourself reminds them that you exist, and covering their issues gives them an incentive to spread the word and create buzz through their social networks.

Spending warm summer evenings in a dry community meeting isn't always the most appealing thing in the world, but I think it's key to making local journalism work.

-Scott
CentralDistrictNews.com
Neighborlogs.com

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

What Scott said. That's how WE roll, too. West Seattle has something like 15 regular community council/association meetings each month and we are at them all. (OK, once in a while, we may miss one if we can't get a freelancer and there are conflicts, etc.) Not only that, we are generally the ONLY journalists there.

I personally think contests are NOT the way to go. Your market may vary BUT -- contests ring inauthentic, desperate, cheesy, "what? you trying to BUY me?". And there's a glut these days. In the old mass-media, few-outlets days, a contest used to be something kinda special. I used to call in to radio stations to win things back when dinosaurs walked the earth. These days, there's a contest on every corner, yawn, ho-hum.

We have never done a contest. We have built tremendous traffic on simply covering the hell out of our community - which gets people talking, sharing, etc. - also, participating on the site (and I know you are a community goddess so you know all about this) seems to engender loyalty and word-o-mouth too. THAT is something still rare.

Our only other major "promotional" - and that's not really the main motivation for it - tactic is to sponsor community events. This usually involves a combination of cash and advertising. And it is just something important to do as a contributing member of your community, as many other businesses do. This year we have co-sponsored almost everything major in West Seattle, which means that WSB is on the posters, in the programs, on the websites, etc. And the contributions really do help the local community groups, which are usually running on a shoestring.

Good luck!

Tracy in WS

--- On Thu, 7/15/10, Scott Durham <sc...@instivate.com> wrote:

> From: Scott Durham <sc...@instivate.com>
> Subject: Re: {JTM} Low-Cost Marketing/Promotion Ideas for Hyperlocal Sites

[Tish Grier]

Community sites (and newspapers even) might want to look into the word-of-mouth
and social media marketing efforts that work for both small businesses and big
corporations. Gaspedal, run by my friend Andy Sernovitz, has tons of
information and runs great seminars and workshops on the tried-and-true word of
mouth marketing techniques as well as social media marketing techniques. I've
been hanging around marketers for as long as I have journaists--and have worked
both the marketing and journalism end of social media--and Andy's methodology
for combining old and new is some of the best out there. Andy makes a whole lot
of the information and presentations he's collected available on SlideShare,
too.

to find out more about Gaspedal's work, go to: http://www.gaspedal.com

There's also a Word of Mouth Marketing Supergenius event coming up next week in
NYC: http://gaspedal.com/supergenius/nyc/

Since I'll be liveblogging this event, Andy's given me a discount code to pass
along to anyone who'd like to attend:SGNYCTISHISMYHERO It'll get you 15% off
the registration (and yes, those Gaspedal folks have a real sense of humor when
it comes to coming up with codes!)

Even if you can't make it, I'd suggest going to one of Andy's other events, as
well as looking thru all the great presentations that are up at SlideShare (just
got to the Gaspedal page)

Cheers!
Tish

Social Media Strategies, Blogging & Community Development
site: http://www.tishgrier.com
media blog: http://spap-oop.blogspot.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tishgrier
land: 413-203-1339
cell: 413-265-1500

--

[Barry Parr]

Sponsorship of community events is a great way to go.  I've been able to get sponsor status with only an advertising swap -- no cash involved.  Most traditional media never spend a dime on sponsorship deals, so your event promoters have already been trained by them.

bp

--
Barry Parr

http://coastsider.com
http://mediasavvy.com
http://twitter.com/barryparr

650.523.4929
-----------------------------------------

[Michelle Ferrier]

Thanks all and Tracy thanks for the reminder. Good, solid coverage is always a prerequisite. I asked Martin whether daily email newsletters wasn't too much for readers/users on the site. I don't know if I could sustain daily emails...thus the weekly. Any thoughts from anyone else?

Any clues on the best day(s)/times to send email alerts?

My traffic at my old site MyTopiaCafe.com was a bit different. Early morning (think website with my coffee) seemed to work best.

As for social media, I'm using Twitter to push out article alerts. I haven't used my Facebook page extensively for promotion of the site...seems to me that would drive folks to the Facebook page rather than to my site.

Anyone else want to chime in on social media traffic drivers?;-)

Michelle

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Corona Del Mar Today [mailto:coronade...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 01:05 PM
To: ba...@parr.org
Cc: 'Tracy Record, WSB Editor', 'MFerrier', 'Journalism That Matters'
Subject: Re: {JTM} Low-Cost Marketing/Promotion Ideas for Hyperlocal Sites

That works for me too. Sent from my iPhone

[Bob Gough]

Facebook is huge. We have nearly 1,500 fans/friends. We get about 10 percent of our daily traffic from stories we automatically push to Facebook/Twitter, but Facebook is the vast majority of those.

 

I started the e-mail alert system at the local NBC affiliate when I was news director there. While it became huge, I have so many people who now tell me it is overkill and they are e-mail EVERY story they post to people.

 

And of course, when the weather folks go crazy over rain, then people get hammered with more spam than rain.

[Tish Grier]

Michelle--

to use facebook to drive traffic, you should use the short RSS feed and publish teasers.  Get people to "like" the site, then when they see the teaser, they will click through. 

You can also leverage your Facebook audience for promotions.

Tish

 

---

From: Michelle Ferrier <mich...@michelleferrier.com>
To: Corona Del Mar Today <coronade...@gmail.com>; ba...@parr.org
Cc: "Tracy Record, WSB Editor" <westsea...@yahoo.com>; MFerrier <mich...@michelleferrier.com>; Journalism That Matters <jtm...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, July 15, 2010 1:20:18 PM

[Tracy Record, WSB Editor]

Facebook definitely more than Twitter. We use both (5K on FB and 7K on Twitter) but the clicks are vastly more from the former than the latter. However - I do *not* believe in automating Facebook content. I hand choose which links to post and write an introductory line or two. On Twitter, I have the main account which gets some links but mostly quirky breaking news, observation, Twitpics, advance warnings ... and a side account (2K followers) for links only. I send messages to each account from time to time letting followers know about the other one. And dear GOD, don't have your Facebook account automatically feed your Twitter account. (Our automated tweets are via TwitterFeed, RSS directly of story links) When I see a Tweet that's "from Facebook," I don't even bother clicking thru. TR --- On Thu, 7/15/10, Bob Gough <bgo...@quincynews.org> wrote:

[Corona Del Mar Today]

That works for me too.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 15, 2010, at 9:00 AM, Barry Parr <ba...@parr.org> wrote: