[Daily visits since Nov. 1; arrow shows record 30,884 on Dec. 3]
Once more, nothing drives readership like news that packs a big consumer wallop: Today, Gannett Blog's traffic nearly doubled, to about 6,900 unique visitors, paying 12,000 visits, and viewing 26,000 pages, a new Google Analytics report shows.
The single-day record remains 30,884 visits, on Dec. 3 -- the height of Corporate's unprecedented workforce reduction, which ultimately cost 2,200 U.S. newspaper jobs. Gannett employs 41,500 worldwide.
D'oh! Ad sales down
Unfortunately, today's traffic surge can't make up for the steep plunge in online advertising rates this quarter -- a trend evident in my dismal sales so far today: a grand total of $10.55, all from those Google AdSense text ads, in the green and blue rails, to your right.
With just eight days left, I've raised only $3,566 -- 59% of my quarterly goal. As always, I'm grateful for your sponsorships, which account for 85% of my blog income. Thank you, all!
I'm trying to earn $6,000 quarterly, mostly through sponsorships of $5 per reader, plus limited ad sales. Please use the "Donate" tool in the green rail, upper right. Or mail cash/checks payable to: Jim Hopkins, 584 Castro St. #823, San Francisco, Calif., 94114-2594.
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ReplyDeleteUm, the arrow on the graph actually points to a peak of 20,000, not 30,000.
ReplyDelete7:16 am: I'm glad SOMEONE is paying attention! ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm about to go PayPal'ing again, but if you're talking about making this into a sustainable model, I see several potential flaws:
ReplyDelete1. By asking for so little and going to the well so often (every quarter), you might be minimizing your revenue while maximizing donor fatigue. I suspect you'd be better off by asking for $20, twice a year.
2. Change your revenue collection model. Many hosting services provide Mastercard and Visa shopping carts as part of surprisingly cheap services. You rely on mailed-in donations and PayPal right now...but many of your readers are newspaper folks, and PayPal is some bizarre alt-world to them. Also, consider an auto-renewing subscription model, where people toss you their Visa number and you bill 'em $5 per quarter until they cancel. Again, there are services that will handle this for you in exchange for a small cut of the fee.
3. Google Ads are easy to implement but they completely hose you as a producer of content. Don't buy the nonsense about cheap CPMs. Not all CPMs are created equal. You have a specialty audience and that should be worth a premium to targeted advertisers. If you can somehow build an ad business for yourself and can build out the creatives, you might be able to drag in far more than the crumbs you'll get from Google Ads. Of course, that's a lot of work..but all you'll *EVER* get from Google is crumbs, and Google is looking for ways to turn the crumbs into crumb-ettes.
4. I suspect you're already seeking this out, but there is nonprofit money out there to be had. Now, this blog reads a little too much like a revenge fantasy at times, and that's a turnoff to foundations who might fork over some cash, but there still is a lot of good reporting here. If you are willing to curl up the feelgood snark and focus just on the journalism, you might get that money...but that also might make it less fun and at the end of the day, it's your blog. All foundation money comes with strings attached.
Good luck, Jim. Off to PayPal...
oops -- dumb error -- I forgot that Paypal, of course, does take MC/Visa/Amex. You'd get a bigger cut, though, by setting up your own shopping cart.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas.
ReplyDeleteI also think Jim might want to explore something -- T-shirts? hats? a keychain? -- to raise money. Maybe some clever people could come up with a few slogans.
P.S. It could be something as simple as a coffee cup that says I Read The Gannett Blog. A few of those scattered around the office would be good, clean, passive-aggressive fun.
ReplyDelete