Stories About New Restaurants Generate Lots of Traffic

Yesterday, I published an article on my hyperlocal blog Menifee 24/7, about a new Panera Bread shop coming to town.

Traffic shot way up!

Funny, considering news topics like new laws, a recent burglary, or a local boy scout that painted over graffiti for an merit badge, that articles people want to read the most are about new restaurants coming to town.

But it makes sense.

People love to read about things they love, and one thing that everyone loves is when a new restaurant opens up. Especially when you live in a town like Menifee where residents are starving for more eateries.

I also linked to my article on our Facebook page and Twitter, and the story was shared and retweeted there numerous times. All in all, traffic to Menifee 24/7 hit its highest point yesterday in nearly seven months.

Of course, it helps that Panera Bread is a highly recognized brand too.

But stepping back to a more broad point of view, hyperlocal readers are attracted to topics that have a direct effect on them. Some of my most widely articles include...

• When the city changed the trash pickup schedule,


• When Loma Linda announced it would open a new hospital in town,


• When Texas Roadhouse announced it was coming to town,


• When our vice mayor passed away suddenly.


• When construction on a new shopping center was announced,


• When a young girl went missing,


• When residents voted for/against Wal-Mart coming to town,


• When Albertson's grocery store announced it was closing,


• When the Town Centre shopping center project was put on hold, and


• When we published photos of Christmas decorated homes around town.

Meanwhile, stories we published about new laws, announcements of local events, beautification projects, city budget, feature stories on people and places, seemingly don't get a lot of reaction from my readers.

If people can identify personally with a story, it gets their attention. What is personal to a broad range of people are things they love (or hate) the most, which includes dining out.

So, what are other topics that fit this bill?

Steve Johnson has been involved in Internet marketing since 1997, and is the President of Clear Digital Media, Inc., an Internet marketing firm based in Menifee, CA. He launched his hyperlocal blog, Menifee 24/7, in 2004.

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How to Price Display Advertising on a Hyperlocal Blog

Those of us who have published websites for several years tend to measure effectiveness of display advertising in terms of clicks, CTR, CPC, and CPM.

But local businesses, who have traditionally bought advertising in newspapers and magazines, don't measure their ROI that way. They see advertising as a long-term strategy, not as how many clicks they're getting.

Rather, they look for a slow and steady upstream of customers over a six to twelve month period. They also ask their customers how they found out about them, or count the number of coupons they bring in.

Nicholas Carlson wrote a famous piece for Business Insider entitled, "Confessions of a Patch Salesperson: My Client Sponsored A Patch Site for Two Months And Got 12 Clicks". The piece went on to suggest that the advertiser got ripped off because they paid $300.00 for a banner ad appearing at the top of a Patch Site for two months, getting 2,000 to 3,000 impressions.

But that's not really a rip off. If the advertiser is a local business in the same town as the Patch Site, what they got is their brand name in front of hundreds of consumers in that same town.

Consider this, most hyperlocal magazines charge anywhere from $500.00 to $1,000 per issue just for a 1/4 page ad on page 22 or page 38.

The fact that a local business paid only $300.00 for 2,000 to 3,000 impressions, 12 clicks, over a two month span, may sound like a bad deal, but only if you're an Internet marketer. For local businesses who are accustomed print advertising in newspaper and magazines, they don't really care about those numbers. They measure their ROI by looking at the bottom line month-over-month.

So, if you can sell the same ad campaign that the above Patch Site sold, and the customer is seeing its bottom line trend upwards, then consider it an effective campaign.

So how much do you price display inventory on a hyperlocal website? Take a look at the rate cards for other print publications serving your town. Find out what it costs a business to buy an in the newspaper or local magazine.

You're going to have to know these numbers because the local businesses you're selling to are going to compare your website with them.

Don't sell them on impressions and clicks. Instead, sell them on how many people view your website each month, and how long their ad will display on your website.

If you don't know how to obtain the rate cards for newspapers and magazines, then call them up on the phone, and ask them to e-mail it to you. Don't tell them you're a competitor, just pretend you're a new business interested in advertising.

Steve Johnson has been involved in Internet marketing since 1997, and is the President of Clear Digital Media, Inc., an Internet marketing firm based in Menifee, CA. He launched his hyperlocal blog, Menifee 24/7, in 2004.

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So Far, Advertorials Continue to Work For Us

We've made a lot of progress on our hyperlocal website, Menifee 24/7 in recent months.

We've been able to increase income by finding new advertisers, and that has allowed us to hire some new writers, including a new weekly columnist.

What seems to be working really well are the advertorials. I've written about advertorial concept before on this blog, and just wanted to add more detail since it seems to be a business model that creates results for our advertisers.

Part of the key towards this success is that much of the businesses in our community has become more familiar with how it works. Our first two advertisers was a fitness center and a sports bar. We wrote articles about their news, whether it was a new bar menu, or new exercise machines, or new deals and specials. After several months, these businesses started telling other businesses about the positive ROI our advertorials have done.

That's when other businesses started calling us.

Now, we're writing about 10 advertorials per month. And as a result of the increased volume, we have one person who writes them all for us.

Of course, we still run banner ads on Menifee 24/7. For some businesses, that's all they care to have.

Remember, advertorials don't have to sound commercial. You can write them as legitimate news. A restaurant may be introducing a new menu, which is news. The fitness center may install new sets of machines, which is news. The florist may have extended its hours for Valentine's Day, which is news.

And as far as disclosure is concerned, sure absolutely, make full disclosure. Nothing says an advertorial has to be misleading to be effective.

So why not establish a 6 or 12 month contract with one of them to write one news piece per month for $250.00? Then, upgrade that service to $400.00 a month by publishing whatever flyers, articles, and videos they produce. Then upgrade that even further to $500.00 a month to display their ad banners.

Steve Johnson has been involved in Internet marketing since 1997, and is the President of Clear Digital Media, Inc., an Internet marketing firm based in Menifee, CA. He launched his hyperlocal blog, Menifee 24/7, in 2004.

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Crime Doesn't Pay in Hyperlocal Journalism

Really? Crime reports? And that makes you a hyperlocal journalist?

It's all so easy to grab the latest press releases from the police department website and rewrite them into a story, but why bother reporting on subjects that the newspapers are already covering?

Besides, advertisers don't want to be associated with negativity. They don't want to get in front of readers who feel depressed about the community they live in. They'd rather get in front of readers who feel compelled to spend their money on dining, shopping, and hair styles.

I continue to examine other hyperlocal blogs and see so many reporting on crime. Let the newspapers have that fodder, and instead focus your efforts on digging deep into your community.

The role of a hyperlocal journalist is to provide the character and depth that makes your fellow residents feel proud of their town.

The newspapers can't spend that much time digging so deep because of physical limitations of newspaper space. They already have to allot space to weather, crime, city council, and advertisements. Their reporters don't typically live in your town, and don't know what lies beneath the facade of tract homes and shopping centers. But you, the resident hyperlocal, do.

Newspapers tend to pick all the low hanging fruit, the crime reports, press releases from the city and school districts. Even attending city council meetings and reporting what was said on record is easy stuff. With their printing deadlines, office staff, and management bureaucracy, newspapers can't spend the time to reach the fruit at the top.

But picking a particular topic, interviewing several people, doing the hours of research, to dig deep and get the story behind the story, is what only a resident hyperlocal journalist can do.

Write about the local model airplane club. Write about the dry cleaners that closed its store and converted into a pick up and delivery. Write about that strange guy who stands on the street corner every day holding "Jesus Saves" sign.

This is the stuff that differentiates one community from another. It gives your community more depth beyond just another place full of tract homes and shopping centers.

If you can focus on publishing these stories, you'll generate a loyal following of local readers, and create a positive brand that local businesses will want to advertise on.

Steve Johnson has been involved in Internet marketing since 1997, and is the President of Clear Digital Media, Inc., an Internet marketing firm based in Menifee, CA. He launched his hyperlocal blog, Menifee 24/7, in 2004.

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Why Some Hyperlocals Fail to Make a Connection to Their Advertisers

Just yesterday I sat in a seminar here in my hometown conducted by a newspaper that serves our greater area. I guess the print news industry is hitting hard times because that paper is now trying to rebrand itself as an Internet marketing solutions provider.

It was meant to teach business owners about the power of Internet marketing, but it was really about marketing the newspaper's online advertising services.

The audience was small. The seminar was poorly marketed which itself speaks volumes about a newspaper's ability to market its digital advertising solutions. But more importantly, those who were in the audience seemingly looked dumbfounded when the seminar was over.

Now, the hometown I live in is hardly Internet-savvy. It's only a couple decades out of having been a rural town, and some still call this place rural despite a recent influx of shopping centers and housing developments. But a lot of businesses here are still hurting from the recession, and they are all eager to learn how to leverage the power of the Internet.

So on and on the speaker spewed forth letters like, SEO, SEM, CPC, and CMS, along with terms like "keyword buys", "display rates", "mouse overs", and "behavioral targeting".

One woman in the audience spoke out feeling as if she was overwhelmed. "I guess we're still pulling the old Conestoga wagon, because we're not doing any of things you talked about" she said.

Certainly, the newspaper knew a lot about Internet marketing, but what it didn't know much about was how to speak to its audience.

These were mom and pop shops, the pizzeria, the florist, the locksmith, the little guys who don't have the power of national franchise branding that Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's has. Some of these shops don't even have their own Facebook pages, and if they do, they hardly update it.

These are the business owners that I've been selling advertising to for my hyperlocal blog. We meet them at chamber of commerce mixers, the Rotary club meetings, and at city council meetings. It takes several of these meetings of us slowly explaining the basics of Internet marketing until they finally understand the concepts.

And that time, they're willing to try us out.

Albeit many of you reading this have blogs focused in communities much more urban than mine, and local business owners in your town are perhaps more in touch with Internet marketing, the idea is the same. You have to talk to your customers in their own language.

The family run businesses in your town are not going to be wowed over with mouse-overs and behavioral targeting because they don't know how that translates into getting more customers into their stores.

Coupons work well because business owners can launch a campaign and count the number of coupons that trickle in. They can't do that with banner ads. That's where you have to get out of your office and into the chamber mixers, city council meetings, clubs, and spend a lot of time building up the business community's trust in you.

Steve Johnson has been involved in Internet marketing since 1997, and is the President of Clear Digital Media, Inc., an Internet marketing firm based in Menifee, CA. He launched his hyperlocal blog, Menifee 24/7, in 2004.

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The Goal of an Advertisement

Ads are designed to build name recognition, and eventually, after being seen on a consistent basis, build a relationship with the reader. Readers become comfortable with seeing a business' name over and over, and when they need those types of services, they will call the name that they are most comfortable with first. One ad should garner nothing. It takes time.

Advertisers don't know this. Advertisers believe that with every penny they spend, they should be able to count the Return On Investment (ROI) immediately. Even seasoned advertisers have trouble with this concept.

The only time a business sees immediate results from an ad is with a coupon. There will always be the type of consumer that will try a business once with a coupon. Thus, Groupon and other sites like it continue to thrive. Because somewhat naive advertisers see immediate results.

Another factor as to why advertisers like coupons is because the have solid proof to track their new customers. They have, in hand, actual coupons that they can count at night, with their cash drawer. Having that tactile evidence convinces an advertiser that coupons work.

What an experienced advertiser will know is that bringing a consumer in with a coupon rarely creates a repeat customer. That's not to say that there is not a place for coupons in the marketplace, but they are certainly not the most effective way to advertise.

Tracking is important in advertising. Teaching your advertiser how to track their increase in sales is crucial. I plan to cover that in a future post. Advertisers need to be convinced that their ads are being seen and bringing in customers, or they will end their advertising, lose confidence in you, and tell other business owners that your medium in ineffective. That can be devastating.

The goal is to get the customer to click over to the website, dial the phone, or walk into the place of business. Period. What the advertiser has in place from that point going forward is up to them. If they are treated poorly by an employee, do not receive the information they are seeking immediately, do not like the prices or product, and are not tracked, then all of the advertising in the world isn't going to increase that advertiser's sales.

It is not your job to increase sales. Never promise that. It is your job to increase their visibility and name recognition. That you can promise. And that you can do, and do well.

Tina Walker has been involved in hyperlocal journalism and advertising sales since 2004, focused in Southern California, for both print and online publications as Menifee 24/7, The Country Review, 951 Magazine, and Bear Creek Chronicle.

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Be The Advertising Authority

When your local pet shop owner talks to you about advertising, he believes that you are the authority on that subject. Ask him about an Akita, and he can tell you all about one. Ask him about a banner ad, and he's in the dark.

Bakers bake. Roofers roof. Bricklayers lay brick. They are so busy learning their trade, running their business, and managing their staff, that they aren't in business to do your job. Your job is advertising. Know what you do, and then you are an invaluable resource to them.

Learning what type of advertising benefits each type of business takes experience and an open mind. Ask you advertiser what has worked for them in the past. If a type of advertising didn't work, help them determine why. If they say, "I ran an ad in the local paper and didn't get one customer," then that doesn't necessarily mean that the ad didn't work. It just means that perhaps he had unrealistic expectations, or the advertising method wasn't properly executed.

Regardless, it is your job to be knowledgeable about what advertisements will and won't deliver, and which one will work for your client. If a coupon clipper magazine will better reach his target audience, then referring him to a reliable coupon publication will only benefit you in the long run. You will build a relationship with him, and that is the goal of advertising sales. They will come to rely on you as a resource for years to come, and perhaps refer their business friends to you, because they trust you.

Taking their money when you know that an ad with you won't help them will only burn bridges.

Tina Walker has been involved in hyperlocal journalism and advertising sales since 2004, focused in Southern California, for both print and online publications as Menifee 24/7, The Country Review, 951 Magazine, and Bear Creek Chronicle.

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