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One of the fun things about starting a new venture is we've got no rules. No one can tell us we should or shouldn't do something because mostly what we're doing has never been done before.
This is true about the selling side of our business.
In order to pay our reporters, editors, photographers, engineers, and sales professionals, we need money. Since we decided to offer our news sites to their communities for free, the likeliest place we can find money is from local businesses that seek the attention of those of who visit us here. We think you're pretty terrific because you've paid us a call. Businesses think you're pretty terrific because you've got needs to fill and money to spend and they hope you'll spend it with them. Our pages play the role of matchmaker: customer meet business, neighbor meet neighbor.
The traditional name for what we sell is "advertising" but we don't call it that. This is not because we're being sly. We don't call it advertising because we don't think of it that way.
"Advertising" as a human concept and as a word began about two centuries ago. Jane Austen speaks of "advertizing offices" where her heroine applies for a position and finds "something that would do."
Advertising came into being when the old feudal order melted away and folks left their farms and fixed abodes and traveled, mostly to cities. In a feudal estate, there was no need to advertise. Everybody knew who supplied what. There were no stores, no merchants or professionals vying for "custom." If you needed a saddle, you went to the leather-guy there was only one and if you had a toothache, you visited the midwife with her string. No freedom, no choices, no indecision. Every question had one answer, all you had to do was ask.
With freedom came choices. Advertising helped people choose by providing them options. Advertisers began to vie with one another. There was the superior saddlemaker who charged more and the bargain saddlemaker, where your shilling went farther (maybe). There was the old-fashioned tooth-puller with his familiar ways and this new-fangled fellow called a "dentist," who was just then coming into vogue.
During the past 200 years, our personal freedom has expanded dizzyingly and so have our choices. We can live anywhere, do anything, be anyone. This means we have to choose all the time how to live, what to wear, who to be, what to buy. We cherish choice but it also makes us anxious. Sometimes Jane asks me to buy shampoo. Scanning the shelves of strong this, and sleek that, and quick-drying the other, I get anxious.
As choices proliferated and we slid into what's been called "the consumer society," advertising started getting a bad name. There was so much of it everywhere! And lots of it was deceptive, even dangerous. We could be "brainwashed" by big corporations or a malevolent state. Many advertising claims were false. Younger generations began to believe that all advertising was lies. Businesses became frustrated as advertising costs soared and results plummeted.
Planning our community news sites, we knew we'd need money. There is no free press unless it's a profitable press, and everybody on our team, for some strange reason, needs to eat. Since we knew we wouldn't charge our visitors, the only place we could get money was from local businesses. But that was OK. Because what we'd give them in return was the attention of their neighbors, who'd see their messages in a handsome, heartening setting.
We refused to call what we sold "advertising." You will never buy an ad from us, promise. What we sell are "Annual Visibility Packages." This isn't a word-trick, it's a new idea. I take that back, it's an old idea. It's the idea that the way to build your business is to remind your neighbors not only of the quality of your goods and services, but also about who you are and how you contribute to the community. Neighbors support one another. Neighbors salute their customers and teammates and help out at the church fair and underwrite a Little League team or school play. Neighbors enjoy knowing about one another.
An Annual Visibility Package does what word of mouth did a century ago. It doesn't slam your neighbor over your head with "Get it while it lasts!" or "Fifty cents off!" or some slimy lie. It reminds neighbors who have needs that you're here to help, that you have the right stuff, and you're the kind of person they want to be doing business with. So, yes, AVP sponsors get, as part of their packages, a proprietary rectangular space (which we call their Shop Window on the Digital Town Green, though it strongly resembles an ad!). But they also get to salute their customers with "Our Customer Comes First!", which you'll find on the upper right hand corner of the home page. And they get to honor "Local Heroes" for the unsung good works that go on every day in our towns. And they get pictures of their celebrations on our Celebrate! page. And we write stories about the folks they care about, their teammates and customers and neighbors. An Annual Visibility Package, like a shop window on an actual Town Green, fortifies a reputation with thousands and thousands of casual impressions. So when it comes time to choose where you're going to buy your food or car or house or get your tooth fixed, you remember your neighbor first, knowing that she or he is a supporter of the community you both hold dear.
Naïve? I've been called that plenty. Maybe I am. But I refuse to believe that the lying, sneaky, screw-the-customer business culture we've evolved in America is the inevitable law of the land. It makes me mad when I look at an "ad" and realize it's a dirty trick, a deliberate misrepresentation, an attempt to swindle me. Pretty much all of the home mortgage advertising of the '90's was like that and look where it got us. And sadly, it's the same in every business. An ad is a lie, professional pick-pocketing, buyer beware.
Here on the Digital Town Green we hope everything you read is true. And why shouldn't it be? We don't make claims, we tell stories about your neighbors. We don't want to sell you anything, we just want to tell you what's going on. We want to surprise you, yes, but with all the good people and exciting opportunities in your town that you mightn't know about. We want you to be glad about where you live as glad as we are about the chance to keep you informed. And yes, we want you to support the businesses you see in our pages, because they're supporting the communications you need to make community come alive. Without communications, there can be no community. We value our AVP sponsors because they enable us to keep Your Digital Town Green spiffy and in good repair.
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