The Racine County Eye receives about 40 emails per day from area businesses, civic organizations, schools, churches, and nonprofits asking us to run their press releases, which are often promotional in nature.
Don’t get us wrong, we love helping. But when we focus on promoting others it takes away from us being able to write the news. When you send a press release, ask yourself: Is my goal to promote my business or organization? Or am I looking to inform the public about a news-worthy item? If the goal is to promote your business or organization, that means you are not paying us for advertising. And that’s how we make our living.
Now the last thing we want to do is make things awkward between us, but we need you to be aware of how this impacts our bottom line. And yep, we have one of those. We’re certain that you want the Racine County Eye to stick around or you wouldn’t have asked to connect with the audience we built, so here is our press release policy.
Businesses
Donating to your favorite charity, hosting a public event or announcing a new hire is a great thing. If you are doing it to promote your business in lieu of advertising with us via a press release, that’s just not cool. But we get it, you want to connect to our audience and well… there’s a place for that on the Racine County Eye.
Here’s how you can connect with our 55,000 plus audience, which is pretty special.
- New business openings for previously non-existing businesses: free. Please fill out this form.
- Press releases that involve charitable giving: $100.
- Ribbon cuttings for existing businesses that are expanding: $300
- Hosting a fundraiser? Those always have a special place in our heart. If it’s for a nonprofit, civic organization, church, or school, we will post those in our community calendar for free. But if you would like us to promote on our front page and on social media, the cost is $25/week.
- Events that are not fundraisers for a nonprofit, civic organization, church or school: $250
For our advertising rate card (a number of them include sponsored columns), please click here.
Nonprofits, civic organizations and schools
We think you rock. So we offer a variety of free and low-cost options for nonprofit organizations, civic organizations, churches, and schools to connect with the Racine County Eye. Starting November 1, 2019, we’re starting a nonprofit page. A church and school page will also be coming soon.
We offer:
- Self-serve calendar event posting – free. Interested? please email Krish Colon at krish.colon@gmail.com to be set up as an event contributor.
- Single calendar event promotion featured on the calendar, The Buzz (our weekly event roundup), and on social media, $25/week.
- Facebook ad on the profit page, two calendar event promotions per year, and unlimited calendar event posting – $50/month.
- Display advertising on the site – 30 percent discount on ads. For our advertising rate card, please click here.
We hope this clears things up so that things don’t get weird and we can all keep those bottom lines nice and healthy. If you would like more information about advertising, please reach out to Katheryn Knoff at kknoff@racinecountyeye.com. If you would like to send a press release, please email it to denise@racinecountyeye.com.
Denise Lockwood, CEO of the Racine County Eye