One of the things we love about living and working on Capitol Hill is that it often feels like a small town in the middle of a big city, offering us the best of both worlds.
The Hill’s local, independent businesses are an essential part of our neighborhood’s unique character and appeal. As “small town” merchants and service providers, we need to support each other and find ways to tap into that big city energy without compromising the local flavor that makes the Hill special and unique.
As owners of a local business serving the Hill, we understand first-hand the challenges of trying to market a local business on a limited budget. How to best spend advertising dollars has always been a challenge for small businesses, and that challenge is more complicated than ever because online advertising is no longer optional for most businesses. Now that most people seek information and answers online, businesses need to be there, too. But beyond having a website, it’s hard to know how and where to promote your business online. How do you use the World Wide Web to reach customers who are actually in your neighborhood? How can you use the Internet to reach customers who are already frequenting businesses just a few doors away?
Through conversations with our customers and our personal involvement in the local business community, we saw that many Hill businesses have the same questions and frustrations. That got us thinking.
We have also been monitoring the rise in specialized local content on the web – often referred to as “hyper-local” content – which has, in turn, spurred the growth of hyper-local advertising. In some ways, the World Wide Web is coming full circle and embracing an old-school, time-tested model: just as small town and community newspapers have always featured ads from businesses in the community where their readers live and work, online content is increasingly localized and accompanied by local advertising.
We launched HillAds in the fall of 2010, using a business model designed to support and benefit the community where we live and work. HillAds is designed to help local businesses reach local customers – people who are already seeking information about the Hill, whether it’s on a Hill blog, community site, or the site of another Hill business.
We have loved building DC Access to its current level of success – we now provide WiFi to almost a thousand commercial and residential clients – and we’ve learned a lot over the past decade, both about running a business and about the Hill community. DC Access provides a local, friendly, cost-effective alternative for wireless Internet, and our vision for HillAds is that it will fill a similar role for online advertising.
We invite you to take a look at the enclosed information about how to join the HillAds network as an Advertiser or Publisher (or both!), and then give us a call to discuss any questions you may have. We know HillAds may not be the right solution for everyone, but we believe that for the majority of Hill businesses, HillAds offers a powerful way to connect with customers and promote our local business community.
By joining a hyperlocal advertising network that is locally owned and operated, you can count on personal customer service and a streamlined, cost-effective approach that doesn’t require you to be an expert in web lingo. You will also be part of a network that directly benefits other Hill businesses and keeps your advertising dollars in our community.
Sincerely,
Matt Wade & Martha Huizenga
202-546-5898
info@hillads.com
