In response to a growing number of user requests, today we’re excited to announce the launch of EveryBlock neighbor ads. For local merchants, we hope you’ll see them as a simple, do-it-yourself, cost-effective way to advertise your business at the neighborhood level. We’re only launching in Chicago for this introductory phase, with future plans to expand to our other 18 cities.
In a world of seemingly endless marketing options for small businesses, here’s what we’ve combined to make neighbor ads stand out…
- We’ve kept it simple. Not too long ago I heard from someone, “Marketing is what a small business owner does on their laptop in bed at 11pm.” In that spirit, you can create a neighbor ad in under five minutes, no design skills necessary.
- Neighborhood level targeting. We don’t know of another self-serve way to truly target ads at the neighborhood level. And while most geographically targeted ad options are tied to a user’s current location, ours deliver the message to their neighborhood of interest. And we think that’s far more relevant for local advertisers.
- Deals on your own terms. We’ve added an option to include a coupon or deal of your choice. It adds an element of financial flexibility while redemptions can help you gauge the ad’s effectiveness.
- The ad lives within EveryBlock content. Industry nerds lovingly refer to this as “native advertising.” It means that your message looks like EveryBlock content and lives within the flow of it rather than being relegated to a predefined advertising space to which users are becoming increasingly immune.
Additionally, with the launch of neighbor ads comes a change to our event posting policy. Not-for-profit organizations are encouraged to continue to post their events, while we ask that for-profit companies now post their events as neighbor ads. This will help us better manage the increasing quantity of event posts while funding EveryBlock’s future growth.
As we work through this introductory phase, please reach out to us with thoughts or questions at feedback@everyblock.com. We’ll be following up soon with news of additional ad features, and in the meantime really appreciate your input.