Marketing - Rural Town Web Package (Connect North Weest)
Marketing a community is not an easy task, there are a number of ways this can be done over the internet. Here are just a few ideas that you can use
- Promote your town by using the Rural Towns Web Package (eg: Connect North West NSW, Connect South West QLD)
- Have a calendar on the site to promote special events in your area
- A local up to date directory can also be another source to market your community or town
- Newsletters are also a wonderful way of communicating with your community.
Take a look at the Rural Towns Web Package now known as Connect North West Network - A group of websites which include the towns of Wee Waa, Narrabri, Boggabri, and Walgett with a calendar, News and business directory to drive them all. You can learn more about Connect North West Here.
This idea won the Agrifuture's Rural Women's Award in 2006 for NSW.
Rural Towns Web Package (Connect North West)
We have developed a small town web package that is sustainable in today's world. With NBN being rolled out across Australia, there is no better way to get your town noticed on the web and have your own website as a business.
You will
- Promote your town
- Have a business
- Have an events calendar
- Have a local up to date directory and index
- Give every business in town the opportunity to be online with very little effort on their behalf
- Generate income to give you an incentive to keep it up to date
For a long time now we have seen nearly every town have a web presence in the way of a community website. They all get excited and think how great it is to be online. Until it comes to updating it. Then when the community group has run out of funds to host the site or the site has run out of volunteers to keep it up to date. The news is that it is no longer available.
- Where did it go?
- Why were we not able to keep it up to date?
- Why is it not sustainable?
These questions can be answered quite easily.
- Most people in today's world want to be paid.
- Most people need an incentive.
- Money is a great incentive.
If your community has a website which is underperforming why not consider offering to take it over and run it as a business giving the community group a percentage of the advertising on the site. That way the community can get the full benefit of a website that is sustained as a business in their town.
Examples of the town websites are below in the Gallery you can visit them all.
Connect North West Network of NSW for Wee Waa, Narrabri, Boggabri, and Walgett Websites consist of 7 websites
www.weewaa.com, www.narrabri.net, www.walgett.net, boggabri.net, www.namoicalendar.com.au, www.namoinews.com.au and www.namoibusinessdirectory.com.au
Each website has its own particular events, news and business directory relating to each town. Alll linked for easy editing and accuracy when updating.
St George Websites consist of 4 websites (Soon to be Connect South West)
www.stgeorgeqld.com, www.stgeorgecalendaronline.com.au, www.balonnedirectory.com.au and www.reddusttelegraph.com.au
Trangie Website has 1 website
www.trangie.net