My first site

Is it worth the startup $?

[Bates]

Hey folks,

I'm beginning development on a local entertainment site catering mainly to the 77,000 university students in my region. These students are where my initial promotion will be aimed, however I will also be targetting non students as well as high school kids, so the potential audience could be as high as 200,000.

What I am doing is creating a site that will include blogs, podcasts, DJ charts, cd and dvd reviews, local event listings, etc. I am also going to incorporate internet TV, with backstage footage from concerts, video shoots, recording sessions, music videos, ads, etc etc. The general idea is to give college age kids in my region a new source of information and entertainment, creating a site that will continue to gain influence in the area and begin truly competing with local television, radio, print, etc. for the advertising dollars spent on reaching these kids each year.

My question is this: Do you believe it is worth investing $5-7k in having a site like this developed, or do you see things going in another direction? What would you include in a site like this and what sort of marketing and promotion techniques would you use to launch it?

I have alot of ideas for the site, but outside input is always very helpful.

Hope to hear some ideas from you guys. This will be my first site, other than a local music forum which will be absorbed into this larger website.

Greg

[moishe]

Local audience sites can make money but, depending on the market, you may be stepping into some very crowded waters.

Some things to consider:
What is the competition and what would make you better than them?
Social networking is hot, will you be including a social networking aspect to your site? Will local musicians be able to settup their own "space" and post mp3's and or videos?

A local site can be easier to market if you have an easy to remember type-in style domain name. Their are lots of ways to promote a domain on college campuses, flyers, bumper stickers, t-shirts..

Throw some cash at a couple bands that play around town, get them to mention, while on stage, that people can download their latest song from your site and have them toss a few t-shirts with your domain on them to the crowd.

Build a BUZZ

Just my 3 cents, maybe some others have some additional ideas..

M

[restless]

I've built a site like this for my region's university students and I can tell that if you are working on it in your spare time, dont' do it, it takes alot of time to run an entertainment site properly. I thought the site might be kind of self running where the students could contribute articles, events etc, however next to no one ever contributes leaving it up to me to update. The forums is the most active section of the site.

If you could build that culture where students start to contribute more like collegehumor then it would be great but trying to get that culture started is though.

Another issue is that students are usually poor unless they work or are able to get money from their parents. So affiliate advertising brings zero dollars.

I really wished I just targeted the adult singles market instead, my site could've been huge and more profitable by now.

[fi5hbone]

Are you doing it alone? It is not so bad if you are doing it with a group of friends with the support of the Universities.

But yeah, it is tough and I think you can use the $5k to better use.

[Bates]

I should maybe clarify that it isn't targetted at only university students, but the entire 17-30 demographic. I will be focusing on marketing to the university students to start out because I've been a studen tin the region for 5 years and know how to reach them for very little $$.

So 77,000 university students, plus all the university age non students and high school students.