Wow! What a month. Our friends who help us spread the word about the visual arts community in the Carolinas by sending our paper’s download link to their e-mail list of friends and contacts, mentioning or sharing our link on their Facebook page, or just promoting us in any way possible – did a fantastic, super, job last month. The Oct. 2011 issue set several records including: having 76 pages (our largest ever), bringing in 68,360 downloads (May 2011 had 61,199) and attracting 88,300 sessions to our website.
The Oct. 2011 issue also attracted another record, but we don’t get excited about it (87,065 “other”) – a category we can’t tell you much about, other than we got a whole lot of them. Our Internet server says they might be downloads of the paper which come from untrackable sources, but they could also be people looking for tee times on a Myrtle Beach, SC, golf course. They just don’t know, so they get thrown in the a bucket called “other”.
It’s like someone bringing you a birthday present – three years early, and they want you to wait the full three years to open it. You can look at it, shake it, speculate all you want, but you won’t know what it is until you can open it and see, but in this case – no one can tell us how to open the box. The box exist, but it can’t doing anything but frustrate you. That’s the “other” count – all 87,065 of them.
This month was like night and day compared to last month where our total for the month was 37,344 – an amount we surpassed in the first three days of October. We chalk that up to the “holiday at the beginning of the month factor”. We’re thinking of ways to deal with Jan. 1.
The fact that so many people were downloading our October issue also had a major effect on downloads of previous issues. Our second place winner was our June 2011 issue with 1,827 downloads. That’s the second month in a row the June issue has brought in the second highest downloads, but last month it was 2,599. In third place was our March 2011 issue with 1,813 downloads.
After that, the numbers really take a dive. Our July 2011 issue got 523 downloads, August had 390, January got 66 and April had 60. The other issues were way down the list of 10,001 pages tracked – so far down we couldn’t find them. It’s a real puzzle as to how our May 2011 issue, until October, our top issue, has fallen so far out of interest.
The record 88,300 sessions on our website was also a nice surprise. The number of sessions have been growing steadily each month, but in October it was a big jump which means that a lot of those new people who downloaded the October issue took a look at our website too – either at other old issues or other archived items on our website – of which there are plenty.
Which brings up a point of special interest to me. Our stat numbers say 316 people checked out our advertising rates. My question is – what did you see there that you didn’t like? Our prices are dirt cheap for putting your ad in front of a possible 50,000 viewers each month. A 1/4 ad is just $35. If only 1,000 people see your ad – that’s a lot cheaper than most ways you can communicate with a 1,000 people. And that ad can keep on working month after month as people look at previous issues of the paper. We could use more advertising. It’s one thing to have lots of people viewing the paper, we also need to make some money to pay bills. That’s my pitch.
If you haven’t seen the paper yet, the link for the download is (http://www.carolinaarts.com/1111/1111carolinaarts.pdf). It usually takes just a few minutes to download to your computer’s desktop, your tablet, or smart phone. Then you’ve got it at your finger tips all month long.
If you want to be a real “friend” of Carolina Arts, you can become one of those angles who sends the link out to their e-mail list or your organization’s e-mail list. It’s good for us, good for you, and good for the Carolina visual arts community.
And, finally, if you downloaded the paper and didn’t see your gallery, exhibit, or organization’s exhibit listed – what are you waiting for? Send us the info by deadline – Nov. 24 for our Dec. 2011 issue. Visit our website at (http://www.carolinaarts.com/howthepaperworks.html) to learn what you need to send us. Opportunity is knocking. Don’t you hear it?