“I’m into [the Sun] all the time. It’s on the bookmark. I’ve transferred pictures off of it and put it in my scrap book. I visit it on a regular basis. As a past mayor, it’s a nice place for me to keep up-to-date with what’s going on with the city.” — Chad Downs

The Smithfield Sun is the only organization reporting exclusively on Smithfield news, sports, and events.

Although the Smithfield Sun is new and has done virtually no marketing, it is already a go-to news source for 10% of Smithfield residents every month. By late 2010, the Smithfield Sun will reach over 5,000 unique visitors each month with over 100,000 page views, and it will continue to grow every year. Compare this to the city newsletter, which reaches 3,000 homes in Smithfield. At 5,000 unique visitors, we will likely be reaching every home in Smithfield and much of the surrounding area.

We know the Sun will grow like this because of our experience with the Italy Neotribune, a sister publication in Italy, Texas. The Neotribune reaches 4,200 unique visitors each month for a town of only 1,900 people. To get that kind of readership the Neotribune is read by people in Italy, the surrounding communities, and even from out-of-state. Over half visit the Neotribune daily and a third visit at least 6 times a day! We aim to do the same thing in Smithfield.

Our mission is to help connect Smithfield citizens to local events, news, sports, schools, government, and businesses. We will be the most reliable and up-to-date source for local happenings specific to Smithfield.

The Smithfield Sun is already helping citizens connect to the community, and will continue to help the community in several ways:

• Keep citizens informed of important decisions made on a city government level.
• Increase community involvement in high school, city, and other local events.
• Inform citizens of important local news and trends specific to Smithfield.
• Attract local prospects to local businesses first, before considering businesses outside the community.

Helping Smithfield residents to be aware of and connect to each other, to the local government, schools, and businesses is in everyone’s best interest. We are passionate about strengthening the local community and know from firsthand experience how this can help local business owners.

Unique Benefits for Sponsors (and Readers)

“This is a great idea. I love the idea of this newspaper. I remember my parents talking about how the papers used to be back in the 50’s. It definitely has a more personal feel than papers today.” — Ty Coleman

• Be seen as a community leader. Our readers love the service we provide and want to support businesses that make this Smithfield-only focus possible. We focus on Local content only. Because our reporting and events are so close to home, readers do less skimming and more reading. Once they find us, readers come back on a regular basis — some weekly, many daily. As we expand our reporting coverage, the number of weekly visits per visitor increase. Benefit to advertisers: repeat, regular exposure to local residents.
• Advertise in a way customers want. People are tired of advertisers constantly “pushing” pounds of unwanted flyers and mailers and thousands banner ads, emails, radio and TV ads at them every month. Most ads are ignored or discarded. The Smithfield Sun’s advertising is different because:
  1. Ads are for local businesses only and are more relevant to its readers.
  2. They are presented as a sponsored story, which makes them more interesting and read more often.
  3. Our site is 100% clean, free of obnoxious flashing and offensive ads. Readers don’t automatically ignore our ads because we aren’t shoving ads at them. Your sponsored story is read with more interest.
  4. This allows you to easily educate and inform readers about all that you offer, including specials, hours, contact information, how you’re connected to the community, and what makes you unique.
  5. Bottom line: instead of “pushing” advertising at readers, our sponsors “pull” customers in by providing relevant, local business information.
• Receive much greater value and repeat exposure to those closest to you. Because our average visitor visits the site at least once a day, your sponsored story is seen 30 times per month by each visitor (depending on sponsorship level). Compare that to paying more for an ad that will only appear once in a competing newspaper. We provide more value to our advertisers because of our online delivery, and because we are read by readers closest to you.
• Be found in Google, Yahoo, the Internet. Our site continues to grow as an authority for searches relating to Smithfield, Richmond and the surrounding area. Because of this, our sponsors will be easily found for searches related to their business in Smithfield, such as “smithfield ut dentist”, “smithfield ut insurance”. You can use a page on our site as you business “home page” if you want (and avoid the overhead and hassle of managing your own).

Sponsorship Levels

“Thanks for all your efforts. I was able to attend the last School Board meeting because I was looking at the Sun and noticed the agenda there. It’s so much easier to find on the Sun than in the HJ. I appreciate all your good work.” — Teri Rhodes

Prices for our first ten sponsors have been reduced to account for the fact that we are still growing our readership. All rates are locked in for 12 months, and offer excellent value based on growth in readership.

Gold — $1,000 $500 per month

The premium sponsorship with premium placement on all pages (and home page) of the Sun including the highest position and largest image available. Only one gold sponsor will be shown per page. A limited number of gold sponsors are available.

Silver — $500 $250 per month

The silver sponsors receive placement on all pages of the Sun including the home page. They will share the pages with other Gold level sponsors.

Bronze — $250 $125 per month

Bronze sponsors will receive placement on all pages except the home page. In our experience, this still represents over half of the pages viewed every month.

Smithfield Sun Founders Circle Sponsorship

The Smithfield Sun has already proven the demand for local news. Readership levels continue to increase as our reporting expands. Our sister paper, the Italy Neotribune, has also shown how local businesses benefit by supporting coverage of local news and events.

We know that supporting a small but growing local paper requires some amount of faith. It’s for this reason we have designed the Smithfield Sun Founders Circle. Founders are a limited number of early sponsors who make a long-term advertising commitment or up-front donation.

Founders receive:

• Permanent recognition on the Smithfield Sun.
• A permanent link to their company profile and Website.
• Preferential rates locked in for 12 months.
• First use of upcoming sponsorship features.

For more details and to begin your sponsorship please contact sponsors@smithfieldsun.com call 435-227-5508.