Locals are ready for bloggers - make money locally - Early Bird call “Gold Rush” Part 1

I would like to share with everyone trying to make money online through their blog or web site an observation which I made through my two years of publishing a successful local community ethnic newspaper. What follows next is a quick facts about the newspaper and my observation of the changing perception of small shop owners and advertisers. At the end you will increase traffic to your website, you will generate more income from ads that you sell yourself, you will get great publicity and exposure in your community, you will feel great about yourself and you may even lose a few pounds.

Facts about my newspaper:

• Started May  2007

• Targets polish ethnic community in the Greater Toronto Area

• Bi-weekly

• Distributed through local shops, delis and community centres

• It is Free

• Started with 16 pages

• First publication run was 5000 copies

• Tabloid size

• Colour front and back cover and inside spread

• Generates money through advertising only

• Started with 0 down and no loan.

• First issue paid for itself.

• Second issue made profit.

• By issue 10 (after 4  months) I increased its page count to 20 pages

• 2 months later I increased the run to 8000 copies

• Never lost money

• Never looked back

The way I started was simple. I got up. I dressed. I ate breakfast and I hit the street. Walked into every local business, introduced myself and the newspaper (for the first issue I had a colour inkjet printout of the front cover). And I asked for their business. [Keep in mind that I am a professional salesman and sales coach which means that it may be a tiny bit easier for me to do this, simply because I have been doing it every day for the past ten years. But continue reading, I can make a salesperson out of every person, if they want to.]
Local businesses (small shops) don’t do Internet in 2007 and have crazy thoughts of its demise
Remember I started publishing the newspaper in early 2007. Selling newspaper advertising wasn’t a piece of cake but it wasn’t hard at all. Local store owners either advertised in newspapers, on the radio, through flyers distributed to mailboxes or Yellow Pages. No one once mentioned the word Internet. Actually, one lady in an upscale clothing store  told me that the internet lost its flare and slowly will become just something that you use once in a while (she bought 4 months worth of colour quarter page ad space after 30 minutes of talking).
In mid-2008 I began noticing a change. Store owners started asking me about online advertising. The most common statement was “I want to appear on Google when people search for the products/service that I offer.” Some of my customers, when I came to renew their contract were objecting and when pushed to the wall they admitted to having paid over $1500 to Yellow Pages to have their ad appear at the top of their online listings pages (did not read the fine print that their ad will appear at the top of the listing on a rotating basis depending on the number of people who purchase that same spot). Others were telling me stories how their friends and friends of friends are getting great results from online advertising on Google. None had any clue how it worked and how much you had to pay.

This trend does not appear to be just a fad. I think there are a few reasons why this is happening:
1)    Current economic conditions – monkey see, monkey do… businesses look at others cutting down their spending and they follow, soon everyone is following and saving. But businesses know they cannot survive without advertising, so they again look at others and they hear that the Internet offers great opportunities to advertise at low costs with targeted ads… only pay when your customers click, very small initial investment.
2)    Google snowball – the snowball (or maybe balloon) has picked up momentum, as per my observation, and the ball is growing bigger and bigger sticking everyone to itself and growing. [The Internet is a funny thing... I remember in the nineties the scary word in the printing industry was “paperless”. But all stats were pointing in quite the opposite direction. One of the largest paper consumers for printing was Microsoft. Then in early 2000 things began to change. Paper mills are shutting down. Newspapers are going under. Companies print their business documents internally only when they need them and only as many copies as they need. The same thing is beginning to happen with advertising. I think Yellow Pages’ days as a paper directory are numbered.]

Early bird call – “Gold Rush”

Based on my personal observations, when selling advertising for my newspaper to local community business owners seeing them not care about online advertising one year and the next starting to talk about it, ask questions and blindly pay for it, out of habit, to the business directory guys, I think it is obvious that there is a new wave of advertisers waiting to be captured right around the corner of every blogger’s home. You just have to have courage and a few skills to make some money for yourself.

In my next post I will tell you how to contact your local businesses, speak with the owners and get appointments to see them in person without any possibility of rejection. It’s a great feeling when you accomplish that. I guarantee, you will be jumping up and down like a kid.

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