Re: Reston Patch Circling the Drain?
Date: January 31, 2014 09:41AM
chuckhoffmann Wrote:
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> nat4lee Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Tell me exactly how in the hell you can have a
> > quote "local" news source when the same editor
> > evidently has to be in Chantilly, Fairfax
> Station,
> > Lotron, Oakton, Mount Vernon, Tyson's Corner,
> and
> > Lord only knows which other towns all at the
> same
> > time, and know what is going on in each small
> > community, and the myriad differences in each?
> > Impossible.
>
> You can do local, you just can't do "hyperlocal",
> which is what Patch was all about.
>
> If you think about it, there's just not enough
> people in Fairfax County to justify the expense of
> "hyperlocal".
>
> For example, there are 30,484 people in the
> Springfield CDP. If you add in the North
> Springfield (7,274), West Springfield (22,460),
> and Newington (12,964) and Newington Forest
> (12,442) CDP's, you have a total of 85,624 people.
>
>
> Now, if 10% of those people are reading your
> "hyperlocal" Web site regularly, I'd say you're
> doing fantastically well, but that means you only
> have 8,562 "subscribers".
>
> If I'm getting paid $40,000 a year to produce my
> "hyperlocal" Web site, that means I have to sell
> $4.67 worth of advertising for every subscriber
> just to cover my salary.
>
> Even further, if I have 5 ads on my site and every
> one of the ads on my "hyperlocal" Web site
> generates a 2% response, that means that the cost
> to my advertisers for a total of 171 customers to
> each advertiser. That means you have to pay me
> $667 per month for a potential of 14 new customers
> that month, or nearly $50 per customer.
>
> Note that my percentages are wildly optimistic.
> I'd say a more realistic response would be maybe
> 2% subscription rate, or 1712 people, and a 0.2%
> conversion, or about 3 people per advertisement,
> because the truth is that most people absolutely
> ignore advertising on Web sites.
>
> If I go to a business telling them I can send them
> another three customers a month, they'd be like,
> "Oh, that's nice," but they're definitely not
> going to pay me hundreds of dollars to do it.
Excellent analytical skills Chuck
I could be wrong but I'm right 99% of the time