the330 gains 15 advertisers, no new expenses, in one month

PR is no longer tossed out. Dining and entertainment related announcements of all kinds make it into the new site.

Below the fold: The "spotlight" rotates through advertising restaurants; 16 sold in the first few week at $200 a week.

A not so subtle rotation of a client promotion into the lead editorial image on the330.com's dining section.

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Summary: Ohio.com, the site associated with the Akron Beacon Journal, launched a separately branded entertainment site, the330.com in 2010. The site increased entertainment traffic by almost 50% in the first 30 days since launch and acquired 16 new advertisers, including the art museum, using a novel approach that spotlights restaurant advertisers. 

Site: Ohio.com, the site for the Akron Beacon Journal, owned by Black Press

UV's:  967,149 monthly
Page Views: 7,798,989 monthly
Key executives: Amanda Carroll, Marketing Manager; Jim Arnold, Site Manager

Challenge: Ohio.com com has significant traffic, but had a "huge challenge" selling restaurants, even after putting together a three-person team just to sell entertainment oriented clients.  The entertainment channel on Ohio.com, included not only nightlife, but also puzzles and games. The Zvents restaurant directory ranked well in local search but was not a destination.

"We were hearing more and more from the market that we did not reach their audience with our newspaper. The (restaurants) wanted to be online, but we didn't have anything they were interested in."

The team including the marketing manager, site manager, advertising coordinator and selling reps met to discuss ideas and survey the competition. Both Cleveland Metromix and Cleveland Scene had a strong nightlife focus.  

"Akron is  in the Cleveland DMA and  some sites do a good job in Cleveland... but not Akron. Why should we let them come in here and cover Akron when we can do it better?"  Carroll says.

Strategy: The group came up with a plan for a separate entertainment site that would be branded differently  from Ohio.com, and designed to reach the 18 to 34 audience as well as the audience they already engaged in the legacy site. The team pitched the idea to the executive team and got their sign off in December, 2009.

First they held an inhouse contest to find a name, and chose the name the330.com, because it was recognizable as the local area code. "The name was the hardest thing to find, a lot were already taken or did not make sense."

The site was built on a Word Press template, launching on June 4. A promotional contest every Thursday captured several hundred email addresses in the first month. The site operations are "blended in" with managment of other content. Any incoming press releases were used to update the site throughout the day.

"The best part about our ohio.com team is they are open to new ideas, they understand that it takes a lot of content to power a web site. You have to post little tidbits as often as you can to get the information out." The restaurant reviewer is "an engineer who likes to eat, we just want to make sure its clear the he's not affiliated with the Akron Beacon Journal" if someone gets a bad review.

Appropriate entertinment channels are redirected from the Ohio.com nav bar.

A key advertising product created for the restaurant category is a "spotlight" advertorial on the home page. For a small weekly fee, a restaurant gets the advertorial, 10,000 banner impressions, plus a large 450 by 250 photograph that rotates through news photos in on the top home page position.

“The beauty of this project is we have been able to come up with some unique advertising options. We have been able to provide a mix of editorial and advertorial content without being obnoxious” about the way it is presented. 

Results: In the first month, the team has signed 15 to 20 brand new advertisers primarily restaurants and is sold out through July. The local art museum also signed up to run sliding billboards on the days of big openings, and banner ads for a Thurday night concert series. And a large move theater that was pulling out of print in the Cleveland DMA, accepted an aggressively priced proposal that included a heavy online buy on the new site.

The site is aiming for a modest revenue stream in the high five digits for the first year. And page views have continued to increase from a 5,118 average daily page views (158,676 total) in May, to 5,801 average daily page views (174,054 total) in June and 7,600 average daily page views the first few seven days of July. The330.com is on track to do 235,000 page views in July.

Lessons learned:
•In this case, rebranding as a separate site helped acquire a different audience and recapture the attention of advertisers. 
•Local ideas that come straight from the market through the sales representatives have a better chance of matching real needs in the marketplace. Niche site concepts also need to have enough legs for the team to commit to posting on every day over a period of years. 

•A sales driven approach that allows some advertorial products to occupy editorial territory can work online.

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.

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