DID YOU WEEKEND? Part Family. Part Romance. All Fun!”
didyouweekend.com. “One of the Best New Sites”—WNYT
c. The Consumer Press
a Division of Archimedes Press, Inc.
“Archimedes: The Power of Thought. The Power of Knowledge”
What It’s All About
“Gone are the week- long trips. We are pressed for time, and crunched for cash. We want to leave on a Friday and come back Sunday, feeling completely refreshed. It’s cheaper, and it’s something we can do over and over.”
They Call it the Great Northeast for a Reason
We are pressed for time, and crunched for cash. We want to leave on a Friday and come back Sunday, feeling completely refreshed. It’s cheaper, and it’s something we can do over and over. Gone are the weeklong trips.
Where can we go Friday and come back Sunday? We can stay right here, nestled home. We can go to Montreal, Boston, New York City, Pennsylvania, the Vineyards, Montauk, the Cape.
We are within driving distance of a bunch of great places. Just no one ever told us about them—until now. This web site answers that one burning question: “Hey, what do you want to do this weekend?” Married or not, kids or not, there’s something for everyone.
Our mission is to become the most closely watched online magazine in the Northeast and Upstate New York. To set the standard for all magazines. To at last answer the question we all ask: “What do you want to do this weekend?”
“ Part family. Part romance. All fun” c.
We make this trip once. Let’s have fun.
The Market
One of the most popular questions since the dawn of time? “Hey—what do you want to do this weekend?”
Now, one web site, www.didyouweekend.com, answers that question. Filled with thousands of ideas, we are growing, and growing rapidly. What started out as a “fun idea” got us named “One of the Best New Sites” by WNYT Channel 13’s websitewinner –two years in a row!
Our site answers one question: What do you want to do this weekend? Where can we go Friday and return Sunday? Or what restaurant can we try if we just want to hang out? Those answers stretch from Montreal to New Jersey, to Boston to New York. But even though we travel, we always come home.
Print?
We love print, and we’ll truly miss it. But it is time to move on.
More and more people are spending time on the net. If it’s Friday morning, and you want to do something fun for the weekend, you’re not going to run out and buy a magazine.
“I would never recommend print. It’s on its way down.” Jim Cramer, Mad Money, February 15, 2008.
But there’s another problem with print, and that’s distribution. So, you buy an ad in a cool local magazine for about $2,500 a page, and what happens? The magazine gets dumped in a coffee shop somewhere. Who’s reading it? You have no idea. How many people are reading it? Again, no idea. The advertisers will tell you, “Our audience is 150,000”. Oh, and you know that how? Assuming three people will pick that issue up in the coffee shop?
Most importantly, who is picking it up?
And when that issue is sold out, your ad is gone. That’s right—the $2,500 is both gone, and forgotten, and you have nothing to show for it.
Our Ads are Visible
On our web site, a reader can’t change the station. They can’t block out the commercial until it’s over. Our ads aren’t a nuisance of pop-ups. They are ideas. Our ads interact with the reader, and are recommended to be specific to the site.
How do you tailor for example, a bank ad to the site?
“Want money to have weekend fun for the rest of your life? Our investment department can help you. ---Bank for all your needs.”
Ludani tailored such an ad: “Want more time for your weekend fun? Leave the copying to us.”
A jeweler: “Taking her to that romantic B&B for an anniversary?”
Our ads will interact with the reader. They won’t be those ads people change the channel on. They will be comforting and relate to the topic.
Our Customers Want to Know Where to Spend Their Money
The beauty of didyouweekend is that people are coming to our site with the intention of spending money. Viewers are looking for something to do, somewhere to go, somewhere to spend money. They want ideas.
The print just dropped in the coffee shop is hoping it finds someone who needs your ad, your services. The person who logs onto didyouweekend is looking for an ad or a service.
Key Point: They are coming to the site because they want to know where to spend their money. How different is that from dropping a fancy magazine in a coffee shop hoping it finds someone who wants to part with a dime?!
So, We Did a Test Run
Our site was down from October to December, because we outgrew the first two sites in such a short time.
We gave a few ads away, completely free, from January 14th to February 14th.
Ad one received thousands of impressions in three weeks. And they even rotated! They did not always appear. Each received “clicks throughs” to their own sites, to either browse or purchase.
When you advertise in print, it’s usually impossible (absent a coupon) to tell who opened your door because of that ad. Sure, “x” number of copies went out, and they tell you each reader gave it to three friends. But is that true? And are the readers looking for you?
One set of advertisers tells you “It’s how many people saw your ad” or, “It’s all about repetition”.
Before we even advertised our new site, one ad was viewed over 2,000 times. How’s that for repetition?
In July 2008, we started another ad and let it run for 3 months—90,000 impressions.
Actual Comments
“I was looking for a place to take a date and wasn’t sure where to go. I logged into the Restaurant Reviews, saw the Lighthouse, and made reservations. Great place!”
-Albany
“Awesome Site! You do it better than Yahoo!”
-New Hampshire
“It’s Monday. Recess with the kids is coming up. When do I get to see your recommendations?”
-Malta
“I saw your ad for the wine tasting. We’re going!”
-Glenville
But how does internet advertising work? I’m kinda new to this. Does it cost zillions?
We Can Afford to Be Inexpensive
It’s simple math: We represent Maine to New Jersey, and have hundreds of pages to fill. Most sites have a page or two, and plaster what they can on one or two pages. The sheer magnitude of our breadth allows us to do quantity. Quantity allows us to keep our prices low. But remember: It’s related quantity. Our goal, when possible in working with different clients, is to find a way to tailor the ad to the theme, so it doesn’t seem like an ad; it seems like a recommendation. No one else does this.
Some sites do cost zillions, and that’s where we win.
1. We’re new, but people love us, and we’re growing fast;
2. We attract people who have money to spend and are looking for somewhere to spend it;
3. We have so many pages, we can steeply discount ad rates.
4. The choice of impressions is yours!
WHY US?
We’re good, and we’re pros. Nothing amateur or trashy on our site. Finally, online material with print quality.
Our site will never be offensive to anyone. An ad will not appear pages away from something your customers may find offensive.
Articles: All our articles are professionally written, by real writers.
Our video? The NY Post on March 7th, 2008, reported:
“ The popularity of online video is surging but ad revenue has been slow to follow. Spending on video advertising is expected to hit $1.3 billion this year, which is still a fraction of overall online spending.
Advertisers, big brands in particular, are nervous about having their ads associated with homemade or poor quality clips. “
Us:
Rich DiMaggio authored two best sellers and created Archimedes Press, a publishing company listed in Writer’s Market.
Kim DiMaggio is the Editor in Chief and consultant, and works on all facets of this project.
Dave Austin is our web designer, full time, on board, and brings with him a host of talent.
Michael Kennedy is a professor and director, who has taken over our small theater section.
Our authors: We have a team of authors in every State bringing us submissions. Each article is professionally written.
We are all highly credentialed and committed to making life easier for everyone. This site is great, and we all work hard to bring rich, flavorful articles every month. And the best part: We do it without raunch, 100% of the time. This web site is for you and your families, so you will never—ever—have to be afraid of something your children may see.
It is here to tell us once and for all about the great Northeast, and to answer that one burning question: What do you want to do this weekend?
Most importantly, this web site is about fun.
We make this trip once.
Let’s have a great time.