Last Call for First Salem-News Volunteer Orientation

Several people have contacted Salem-News.com to visit our studio this weekend and learn more, there is still room.

Bonnie and Tim King in Salem, Oregon

(SALEM, Ore.) - After five years, Salem-News.com exists as the largest Internet news group under private ownership - in the world. We have climbed in Web ranking, on the search engines, and we're one of the only U.S. news groups that exists within the mainstream while approaching journalism with no strings attached.

Salem-News.com's Matt Lintz

Our original and enduring vision is to help develop and launch Internet news sites all over the nation, and world. Salem-News.com is built from the ground up by our Web Designer Matt Lintz and I can attest to its amazing consistency and user ease. It was created for the delivery of electronic journalism and it is designed to journalist specifications.

We have a team of writers who hail from Oregon, the greater United States, and other parts of the globe including Canada, Mexico and Malaysia. Beyond that, we have a worldwide network of contributors and people who make sure we know many of the latest developments taking place and making the news.

I suppose if there is one area that we spend the most time in, it would be the military, a subject that is multi-fold. We have demonstrated our commitment to our viewership and directly to the families and friends of soldiers and Marines by sending a reporter, myself, to both Afghanistan and Iraq to cover the Oregon National Guard at war. This is where our slogan, "Covering Oregon in very real terms" was born.

Salem-News.com is also a continuous source of information on PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which so many of our returning combat veterans suffer from. We also have closely followed the stories of two Marine Corps bases that are heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals, where hundreds of thousands of Americans served.

Closer to home, Salem-News.com is an Oregon news powerhouse. We come in contact with far more news than we can even publish, and that brings us back to the whole idea of why we started working in Internet news in the first place.

Communities all across the nation are in the same boat as Salem, Oregon; they are an hour or more from their television market, and they get little, to no coverage at all. Newspaper operations are outdated and closing, and Internet news with video is clearly the answer, as is proven by the soaring popularity.

Five Solid Years in Oregon

It's pretty sad when you have something great and people who could seriously benefit from it, don't know about it. That is what happens when you gear your media group toward product (news content) instead of prioritizing sales.

We have in all likelihood, contributed to our own slow growth in ad sales. Scruples have something to do with it. First, we allow no "invasive" advertising. No pop-ups, no pop-unders, no advertising that intrudes on our viewer's space. Our first prospective advertiser in 2004, a senator in Oregon, ultimately turned us down because we wouldn't sell him a pop-up. So be it.

We also refuse to charge for content, unlike the Statesman Journal here in Salem or many other publications that see news archives and a revenue stream as one. We simply don't believe our purpose in life is to charge people for information. Nothing against media groups for trying to make money, but that also seems to fly in the face of our whole objective in serving the community.

Salem-News.com also monitors comments for profanity and keeps a product that is almost always kid friendly. When excessive violence or unavoidable profanity is used on the site in any way, including video reports, we use disclaimers so people know what they are getting into.

It goes on... we refuse to implement services and advertising that we don't think our visitors want to see. For example, in our classified ads, we will not post any of the "work from home" ads or anything else that looks fishy. We are just honest and forthright and we know someday it will come around to us.

Because we are different and not part of the main system that supplies America with news, our struggle has been long and hard. Bonnie King, my wife and life partner, owns the vast majority of this company, and she works seven days a week on development and managing the many things that a Publisher is responsible for.

We need help, we need people, and we have a lot to offer those who get involved.

What can you do?
Here are our primary needs:

• News Volunteers
• Advertisers
• Advertising Sales help
• Investors

News Volunteers

In a perfect world, we would be listing employment opportunities. The economic climate just does not allow that at this time. However, volunteer positions are valuable on many levels, and especially in terms of real, hands-on experience with mentors directly from the industry. That simply can't be beat.

We look at CCTV, Salem, Oregon's cable access program, which is non-paid, hobby TV, and they are packed with volunteers that love media and would perhaps like to take their interest another step further. We are confident that many will see the thriving activity at Salem-News.com as an opportunity for themselves.

The difference is that Salem-News.com is a professional group; a business, and while the revenue streams are not all fully defined, they are there. We make our own decisions, and can implement programs quickly. People who have an idea for a program can come to us and we can talk it over. We can provide Internet radio live on Salem-News.com and can go live from our news set just like TV news in Portland, to large groups. That is still such a new concept, that people are not taking advantage of it. We have a full studio in downtown Salem and we have the ability to go live around the clock with video.

We need people to get involved. One option is to come to a get together at our studio and get an overview of what is going on. I am prepared to put the first one together very soon. If you are interested in attending, drop me an email at tim@salem-news.com and I will provide details. There will be no cost associated with this.

As far as who we are looking for, that is an open question. The only way for someone to really know if they are interested is to come down to the studio and hear what we have to say. I am willing to train the right people for any number of roles. Some require more time, some require less. Some have the potential of earning money, and they are all rewarding.

Either way, anyone who passes through our doors will learn a great deal about Internet and television news if that is what they seek to do. This is a very rare opportunity.

Of course we could also greatly benefit from the involvement of people with engineering skills. I have a lot of gear at the studio and some of it is in need of an expert to bring it online.

In addition to operating Salem-News.com, Bonnie and I are seriously engaged in the production of a documentary on PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As documentary producers, there is an added level of expertise we are happy to share with volunteers.

Advertisers

For advertisers, simply having a hyperlink on Salem-News.com is like putting an afterburner on a Website. It is a little hard to explain, but Web ranking is very specific and it runs on credibility, among other things. Google's motto is "Do No Evil" and we are behind that 1000%. We have published over 11,000 articles in our news section alone since our redesign in February 2006, and we never, ever stop.

We want our advertisers to have success. Companies that advertise with Salem-News.com find many benefits that are exclusively theirs.

Internet advertising is a mystery for many people in 2009. Those who were online in the 90's recall advertising that was packed with spyware. It was simply dangerous for your computer, often packed with viruses.

Today we see much more in the way of good, solid advertising that is in no way hazardous to the health of your computer. Especially if an ad is local, there is much less risk. If an ad invites people to see products or enter a contest on their local Website, the advertiser will probably have some luck.

One mistake people make is embedded in the "click-through" mentality. Some advertisers believe they should be able to have an ad in place, potentially seen by thousands daily, but only pay when people click on it. We call that the Internet free lunch program. We want people to understand that an ad is an ad. It is branding, it is an object of value that many sets of eyes see and it is exposure for a business. If people see the ad frequently enough, they will respond to it.

Online display ads also need to be attractive and inviting. The color matters, the motion draws people to it, the message is extremely important and more than anything, consistency is paramount. You have to keep your brand in front of people, an ad campaign should be a constant in your business presentation, and Salem-News.com offers advertising that is economically feasible, even in tough times.

The measurement of a site's traffic is another matter of primary importance. You can check Salem-News.com and other high traffic Websites on alexa.com, as well as other Web evaluation sites. Businesses that want to support big corporate media like the daily papers will do so if they choose to, and more power to them. We are looking for new advertisers who simply want to effectively increase sales and earn money. There is a growing pool of business owners who seem to understand where their money really goes when they write those big checks to corporate media.

Instead, they are making the new media choice.

When you advertise with us you keep your money in Oregon, and it is used to grow this business and provide an even better product for our growing community that wants up-to-date, important news.

If you want to learn more, please write to Bonnie King at adsales@salem-news.com

Advertising Sales Help

If there is one group we would like to connect with, they are the media sales people who worked for traditional groups that closed or reduced staff size. It is apparently just a matter of time until they are selling Internet, I can only hope that many take advantage of our group which is not the same as those who are now in severe decline.

We need help in the Salem area of course, and we need plenty of people in the Portland area visiting with the thousands of progressive businesses there. (We get a lot of Portland traffic each day) The Oregon coast is another place that badly needs the promotion we can offer. In fact, both Bonnie and I entered the media field while living on the Oregon coast and we know the place well.

People who have what it takes to sell this new media product, will see one of the highest commission rates offered in Oregon. It is not that difficult to sell and we have plenty of testimonials from our advertisers.

Investors

I would like to think that five years is a long time in any business. We have been working for Salem-News.com consistently since May of 2004. Our biggest unique visitor days have been in excess of 50k people and they are always conservative estimates. Our daily number is not that high, but some days are fantastic.

The biggest thing we have done, is establish a presence on the Internet like nobody's business. For instance, I searched sick Marines yesterday on Google images for another story I was working on, and the first two images on page #1 were both from Salem-News.com. People depend on us around the world.

We more than have the traction. However, because we have done this with a skeleton crew and because this is the time for Internet news to jump forward, we are willing to talk to investors who might have the capacity to feed this business the capital it needs to shift into a higher gear. We will push ahead, it is only a matter of how long it takes. We have seen a great deal of progress already.

The live video option now exists, and we are exactly the right team to do it. The potential is limitless in terms of reach and revenue, and we are excited about sharing the Internet newscast environment with pro-active, thoughtful individuals. It is important to our team that the product be nothing less than a polished, professional presentation. That's an expectation we can meet.

Salem-News.com is a proven concept. Even with our limited sales staff, we manage many current advertisers. Our most recent addition is Willamette Valley Dental Assistance School. The school's owner simply called and requested an appointment to come aboard as an advertiser.

For many, working with Salem-News.com will be an opportunity to enter the online news world and help Americans find their way to better, local information, while helping create the New Media era. As the ground shakes beneath the feet of traditional press and TV, the online news industry is cutting edge and Internet technology constantly allows us to do more.

If you are interested in attending a presentation on the opportunities at Salem-News.com, please send an email and we will put you on the invite list. The date is to be announced. Email: newsroom@salem-news.com.