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In order to raise awareness for my interactive social/classifieds site, which is aimed at a local and specific community, I need to advertise with my direct competitors, the local community paper.

The local paper and its web site is run by a community of volunteers and they don't take kindly to anyone, community or not, competing with their own service.

I feel my site is sorely needed because it is free and interactive but if it is used it will generate income through the usual means of paid advertising. However, I don't think my site threatens the advertising revenue for the paper because plenty of people in the community do not use the internet.

So if I am getting opposition from the local paper to advertise my site, how else can I get word out?

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Your site is much needed because it will generate income for whom? The community? – Lèse majesté Jan 23 at 0:43
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@Lèsemajesté: OP is saying it's "much needed" by the community because it's free and interactive, and will generate income for OP. – akTed Jan 23 at 0:57
No the community needs it for fire safety because we live in bush fire area and for community convenience. – freja Jan 23 at 5:25

1 Answer

up vote 4 down vote

If the local community paper won't run your ads because they view you as a direct competitor then just move on to alternate forms of advertising such as:

  1. Create a Facebook Page promoting your site and purchase ads targeting your preferred demographic
  2. Post flyers on local bulletin boards (e.g. Markets, Post Office, Community Centers)
  3. Obtain a table or booth at your local Farmer's Market/Craft Faire/Whatever and demo your app to the userbase directly.

Applying just a small amount of creativity and effort will get around this (very minor) setback in your business plan. Make sure your site has social sharing baked into it so users can help spread the word for you once traffic starts coming in.

And if all of the above fails? Then this statement is demonstrably false:

My site is needed because it is free and interactive

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It is needed because it is interactive but sometimes you don't have enough people in community that need it, as in use the internet. I use the internet and i need it but it's only as useful as how many ppl use it...catch 22. – freja Jan 23 at 5:23
Thanks for your feedback and suggestions. – freja Jan 23 at 5:23
Right. I know you think it's needed and I don't doubt that something like it probably would be used but the success of getting a population to move from dead tree tech to web tech depends on how motivated that population is to move. If you make a compelling offering and provide a better user experience you will probably be successful with a segment of the audience. How big of a segment? Beats me...you're in a better position to tell. Make a great site, pump it out there as best you can and don't let early setbacks discourage you! – JCL1178 Jan 23 at 5:41
great advice- thanks. – freja Jan 23 at 9:48
You're welcome. – JCL1178 Jan 23 at 20:00

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