There are a good number of local businesses wondering how to reach the thousands of people who read local blogs; here’s how to do it.
Some folks have taken to advertising here via Blogads (the image-and-text vertical rectangles often found at right), but there are now a couple of other local blogs that are newly part of the Blogads network. Sean Tubbs’ Charlottesville Podcasting Network starts at $10 for a one-week run of a full-sized Blogad, and nailgun (the excellent and popular local music blog) starts at the same rate. Also, I’m now accepting them over at Charlottesville Blogs for $15/week.
I think local businesses would do well to give ’em a whirl.
I’ve advertised a few times here and gotten better results than I have advertising in C-Ville and The Hook at a *significantly* cheaper rate. It’s a fantastic deal. When it came time to trying to decide whether to spend $500 on a 1/4 page color print ad, or a $100 a week banner ad — versus $55 a month here — the choice is very easy to make. Especially after I examined my logs and got more traffic from here than either C-Ville or The Hook, amazingly enough.
I’m giving Sean’s site $35 for a monthly ad as well as advertising here again. I’m a bit disappointed there’s not a more active forum/discussion site for the Charlottesville area .. Craigslist rants & raves just doesn’t cut it. I hope Waldo, Sean and the other bloggers keep up the great work — though I do like the advertising being cheap for now. :)
Thanks for that firsthand description from the advertiser perspective, Chad, I really appreciate it.
Maybe I’m naive, but what I like about Blogads locally is that it I think it’s a good opportunity for local businesses and entrepreneurs. I think it’s really great that a local band can advertise an upcoming gig or promote their new album for $10/week on nailgun. There just aren’t many outlets where that sort of targeted promotion is available.
Plus, I’d like to hope that a business model will make it possible for some more involved, in-depth local blogs to develop. If somebody can have a pair of Blogads constantly booked on their site at $25/week, that’s $200/month for a little side job. That’s not too shabby.
Well, Jim Duncan just bought out Charlottesville Blogs‘ one and only ad slot for the next three months. Way to corner the market there, Jim. :)
I should mention that Charlottesville Podcasting Network, this site, and The Hook all also run Google ads that can be booked directly on those sites. Google ads are very flexible, really cheap to get into, and are pay-for-performance. They’re actually kind of fun to set up, too.
That said, I don’t recommend booking Google ads on cvillenews.com, since they only show up when people come to the site via search engines. (To see an example, just click on any of these Google results.) So you’d be advertising to a large percentage of people not actually located in Charlottesville, and just stumbling across the website while looking for something else. Which is why I’m happy to burden them with Google ads.
Advertising performs a valuable social function, in that people have to find out about things somehow. Affordable ads enable groups on a shoestring that can’t carry out their marketing campaigns using traditional media. BlogAds is a good mechanism to regulate this sort of thing. My site has to be paid for somehow.
I’d like to see non-profits use BlogAds to let people know about what’s coming up. I am considering buying my own ads to publicize some of the things posted on my site.
As for an online forum, there is hooville.net, a bulletin board that has extremely low traffic.