Ideas for driving traffic to a website

[Blessed]

History first: I work with the owners of the local monthly newspaper in town. Until last fall it came out in print monthly and had a pretty silent website. Then in the fall the cost of the paper vs the income it generated and effort it took to get that income reached the un-reconcilable point and the paper was silent for about 3 months. Then the owners were able to get their personal finances salvaged, life went on, the paper was revived in an online format and we've become a strictly online paper. Viewable at The GreenSummit Dispatch (http://greensummitdispatch.com)
I don't receive any monetary compensation for the work I do for/with this paper. I'm an unofficial partner in the enterprise, basically - I do this because I enjoy it, it has been a great networking tool for me but this is the one thing I do because I want to do it, not because it makes me any money.

Our problem is that most of our readers still don't know that we are online. We do have a pretty controversial election coming up and the few people in the community who care about that have gotten involved in the online discussion and have told their friends about us, etc... but we really need some more awareness that we are there. Every article is tweeted and posted to Facebook and there are quite a few followers - so we're working on it that way, but need to do more.

We're considering a direct mail piece, I'm curious as to what else you think would be effective. Feel free to pass on any website recommendations too - I don't have anything to do with the design of that site, but get asked for input on a regular basis.

[digitalp]

If you're looking to raise awareness of the website in a local community you could consider advertising on local radio or sponsoring local sports/community events.

If the election coming up is controversial people will likely want to read about it - so play up to this. Plan an extensive and what you could call 'juicy' article series leading up to the election and advertise this at local events & in local media.

Controversy sparks discussion and while I'm certainly not suggesting they falsify or manipulate the story to be sensational, advertising it as such will go a long way to raising interest.

In the UK we would call it the Red Top Tabloid style, see;

The Sun | The Best for News, Sport, Showbiz, Celebrities & TV | The Sun| The Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/)
Daily Star: Simply The Best 7 Days A Week :: News (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/home/)

[painperdu]

Keep writing locally focused articles and the search engines will pick them up and in the long run it will work out just fine.

One of the cheapest ways I can think of getting users to the site is to just send them a post card letting them know you're there. An idea that comes to mind is to run a poll on a local controversy and direct users to the site inviting their opinion -people love to give their opinion. Maybe invite citizens to the site to conduct a straw poll for the upcoming elections. Once there, entice them to participate in the discussion forum.

Of course you still need to reach them in some way. I think standard post cards are .22 cents a piece.

[Patrysha]

Do you have advertisers for the online paper that moved with you from the print edition? Like the Edgewood Construction Co? If so, I would suggest posters and/or decals, countercards etc. for each of their locations.

Second, while the postcards could be effective, if they have the budget for it then a one sheet newspaper replica of the old paper to send them online will stand out a bit more than a standard postcard.

If the relationships with the other media in town isn't too antagonistic, then you'll definitely want to work the publicity angle. I've always found that the media entities in a small town tend not to want to work with or promote each other, so publicity work is a bit harder than with a regular biz.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head, as painperdu said over time the SEO will catch up, but for a quicker boost now before the elections you may have to take the efforts offline to bring them online since you've got the 'net regulars on Facebook and Twitter engaged.

[Spider]

Offer every politician running for office - including the lesser positions - a free page on your newspaper site, in return for a caption on everything they print that says : Supported by "The GreenSummit Dispatch"

Offer discussion points in the form of blogs with comments, and invite the community to comment/discuss. Then put out fliers or direct mail saying "We Want Your Comment!" and the URL of the blogs.

Promote a contest of some sort to predict the results of the elections. Get sponsored prizes from local businesses.

[mcfarldr1]

Everyone covered most of what I was going to say, but what about advertising online maybe on websites that members in the community may visit. Or you could try using Craigslist.com and see if you can let people know that way.

LOL, I'm kind of biased, but you could use social networking sites and then post your information on how to access your website. Become fans of other local places and get the word out that way. It will spread very rapidly on social networking websites like Facebook.

[Blessed]

Offer every politician running for office - including the lesser positions - a free page on your newspaper site, in return for a caption on everything they print that says : Supported by "The GreenSummit Dispatch"

We talked about doing this - too many possible legal problems as well as the whole - "newspaper should take a neutral position" thing.


Offer discussion points in the form of blogs with comments, and invite the community to comment/discuss. Then put out fliers or direct mail saying "We Want Your Comment!" and the URL of the blogs.

All of our articles are in the format of blog posts with opportunity for discussion - we're starting to see some good interaction here. Local politics are the biggest comment generator right now.


Promote a contest of some sort to predict the results of the elections. Get sponsored prizes from local businesses.

We are going to do something like this - not for the election, we're too close. But probably by summer.

[Blessed]

LOL, I'm kind of biased, but you could use social networking sites and then post your information on how to access your website. Become fans of other local places and get the word out that way. It will spread very rapidly on social networking websites like Facebook.

We do use social media quite a bit - every one of our posted articles generate a tweet and a facebook posting. Also the couple that owns the paper are very involved in social media networking - those things are helping!

[Blessed]

Do you have advertisers for the online paper that moved with you from the print edition? Like the Edgewood Construction Co? If so, I would suggest posters and/or decals, countercards etc. for each of their locations.

The paper went totally down for about 4 months at the end of last year and so we're working at building enough of a web presence that people will advertise with us! Edgewood Construction is one of the other businesses that this couple owns - it's the one that puts bread and butter on the table and pays the mortgage :) We do however have two ad partners now that were advertisers previously - they both choose the smallest ad option on the site, but it's a start!


Second, while the postcards could be effective, if they have the budget for it then a one sheet newspaper replica of the old paper to send them online will stand out a bit more than a standard postcard.

We were originally talking postcards because we were looking at just under two weeks to get something out - now we've decided we're not going to get anything out in time for the election, other than our business cards that are generic and just have our web address info on them. But... we have talked about trying to print quarterly so the rate sheet I worked up to try to sell a voter's guide edition was set up in this very format. I'm definitely going to push the idea when we get ready to actually drop something in the mail.


If the relationships with the other media in town isn't too antagonistic, then you'll definitely want to work the publicity angle. I've always found that the media entities in a small town tend not to want to work with or promote each other, so publicity work is a bit harder than with a regular biz.

That's the kicker isn't it - media outlets who don't want to work with each other - it's what we have here. We did however just make a connection with a guy in town who runs a local blog - he's still pretty new, but has been pretty active and aggressive about connecting with people so it should be a good partnership for us both.

[Blessed]

We all went to a fundraising dinner for a young lady in town who is battling her 2nd brain tumor and sat around talking about what we want to do - we've got some good plans in place, are changing the direction of the paper a bit, and I've finally convinced them that we need to write about local businesses, even if they don't advertise with us... because then they will eventually want to advertise with us.

The driving force for me to make the paper thrive online is that once it's generating revenue, I do get commission on any ads I sell and will start getting some compensation for the work I do to make it happen!

[phanio]

I think you were hinting at this in your last post - but, you need to develop a formal marketing plan. One that will help you identify who you are targeting and how to get in front of them - if you plan to target businesses - then you might be on the right track - but, if you are planning to targeting the population at large and want the local businesses to advertise then you have to target the same people the businesses target - thus they will be inclinded to advertise - to get in front of their customers.

Would suggest you research a marketing plan or get some free help from SCORE or SBDC.

[prova.fm]

Hi Blessed,

I just read this today, & it's been several months. Any update on the paper? I'd love to hear what worked best at driving customers to your online version. I'm trying to attract small business customers to my online site as well, & I'm researching what works best.

Thanks,
-David

[Blessed]

Hi David -

We're still kicking around the idea of a direct mail piece to our former mailing zip codes - we have a few advertisers who are interested in footing part of the bill in order to be included on the piece so... we'll see. So far we're just continuing to pass out business cards, writing more articles about local businesses so that they have a reason to point their customers to our site and etc... it's working - slow and steady, but it's working.

[bizjunkie]

Glad to hear that it is working. I guess that is really the key - try things with set goals. If they reach those goals, great - do them again. If not, scrap them and try something else.

Have you been contacting other local media sources like Radio or TV - these groups struggle with content from time to time and might run a free story about you - just help them with the concept fo the story - make it easy for them to wortk with you.

[prova.fm]

Yes. Glad to hear it's working!
Thanks for the reply.

-David

[Patrysha]

Radio (at least in small town environments like mine...can't say for certain that it applies across the board) has a fairly antagonistic attitude against print and to a lesser extent online media. It would be hard to get direct coverage...but there are quite a few ways to get around that...but it does require getting creative.

[RMMarketing]

I have actually had really good luck with Twitter lately. Not too many buyers per say but am getting traffic. I think the key is to really target who you are following and who your follwers. They need to be people who are your target audience.

[handmadejewelry]

Free Press releases are a great way to get noticed online. Submit your news site to the Rss feeds like googlenews, yahoo, associated press... anywhere and everywhere you can. The more places you show up and the more often you post then more people will see you.

Good luck,

[prova.fm]

How exactly do you submit something to Google News? In my experience, they only accept application of an entire site. & it has to meet certain standards (daily updates, multiple authors, news only,...).

[Blessed]

Free press releases are a great way to get noticed online - however... we are a newspaper so we're publishing those press releases and writing our own stories. We aren't trying to make sales - we're trying to build traffic so that advertising space on our site has value.