J. Faith Peppers
Extension News Editor
University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Background

When AccessAtlanta, the web site for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WSB-TV Channel 2, and WSB 750AM Radio, began offering free web sites on their system to local, service-oriented organizations in 1977, the Georgia Extension Service was among the first to sign up.

This paper will detail how this partnership with the commercial web site, which has grown to one of the top 5 most visited web sites in the city, has helped drive traffic to the Georgia Extension Service site and other University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences sites. It will also show how this new form of media relations, public relations and marketing offers big dividends on an extremely low investment.

This has been a highly successful partnership for us and for AccessAtlanta. As the Cox Enterprises-based company begins to spread their services nationally, there are implications for other states to develop similar partnerships.

Method

Introduction

In the late 1990s communications began moving rapidly toward the web. For many communicators the technology was moving faster than our budgets and learning curves would allow us to follow.

There was also the problem of offering local information to a global audience.

In 1997 the Georgia Extension Service got an offer from AccessAtlanta, a new Cox Enterprises venture that is the flagship of their new Cox Interactive Media division, and web home to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WSB TV (Atlanta's ABC affiliate) and WSB Radio. They were kicking off a new community section of their on-line news service and were searching for service-oriented community organizations to sign on.

With the partnership agreement, AccessAtlanta offered a free web site on their server. The site came with easy-to-use templates that would allow you to cut and paste from most any word processing program, and the template would automatically convert the te xt to html code. They offered free training for using the site so the partnership also served as an easy way to get web site training while waiting for our technology and education to catch up.

It also offered the solution to the local vs. global problem. In the November issue of Media Life Magazine, a story on AccessAtlanta said: "One major function of the web of the not-too-distant future may be to take up the role once served by the local newspaper -- to give people not just news but all sorts of useful and timely information about lots of things they care about in their communities.

"This is the theory behind the so-called local portal, a web site offering the functionality and resources associated with national portals such as Yahoo or Netscape while being focused on one specific market or region."

We took advantage of the web site offer and the partnership has since flourished. Below is a case study on how the partnership develo ped and the impact it has had on our communication products.


Case Study

At the beginning of the partnership we were locked into a simple, newsletter style format. We were asked to present mostly home and gardening-type information, but were allowed to include other types of information, also.

The format was simple to use and took very little time to upload. For the most part, we mirrored the news product we released to the media each week. We began immediately getting email requests and questions from visitors to the site.

After about six months, we upgraded the site to include original products including Family and Food and Gardening for Kids sections. We also moved away from the stiff, preset template to a new format that allowed us to write our own html codes giving us greater design flexibility. We were also able to include a link to our college's news site from the related pages.

The new look and design, along with the or iginal products made us a natural for promotion. We received more than a dozen prominent promotions from AccessAtlanta that appeared on rail for the front page of the on-line version of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (See Attached)

On the days that the promotions appeared, traffic to the college's news site increased from an average of 48 hits without promotion to an average of 178 hits on promotion days. Showing an increase in traffic to the news center of 74 percent. The promotion also helped boost page views on the AccessAtlanta site from an average of 428 to more than 1500 views promotion days.*

In late 1998, we became the only gardening site on AccessAtlanta and the site added a new search engine. This gave us even higher visibility with an audience whose number one leisure activity is gardening.

In February 1999, the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences introduced a new PBS television series, "The Georgia Gardener.&quo t; The AccessAtlanta site was an easy way to place pre-season show promotions. Working with AccessAtlanta's promotion director, we were able to set up a live, on-line chat with the Extension agent who hosts the television series.

The chat was scheduled for noon the day before the show debuted. Fifty-six gardening questions were answered during the one-hour chat. So the chat proved to be very success for both parties.

The site has now expanded to include standard sections: Gardening, Food & Family, Gardening for Kids, Science Zone and Georgia Gardener. We also have had special feature sections on Fall Gardening, Spring Gardening, Drought in Landscapes and others. The site also now has an extensive archive of gardening, science, food and home information.

Results

Results

As a result of this partnership, we have a steady presence on one of the most viewed web sites in our market area. We have been able to introduce more readers to our web products and take advantage of some unique marketing opportunities for other college products.

In the next five years, the college will turn its marketing focus toward reaching urban Georgians. This established product gives us one good vehicle to deliver that message. According to Media Life Magazine, AccessAtlanta now reaches more than 26 percent of Atlanta's web audience at least once a week.

In the third quarter Media Matrix market report, AccessAtlanta.com moved into first place as the highest rated local site in the market area. It was ranked ninth among all web sites in the market area. As reported by Media Metrix's web gainer's list for the week ending Oct. 31, 1999, AccessAtlanta.com had the largest gain in unique visitors of all U.S. web sites with 122 percent grow th.

AccessAtlanta's continued growth makes them a very powerful ally.

This partnership has been very efficient for our communications unit. Because of the investment of the commercial site in easy-to-use software, we have been able to maintain this site with one editor spending an average of three hours per week working on the project.

Conclusions

Implications

We are planning other products for AccessAtlanta including sites for local 4-H clubs, allowing them to compete for the best site and display 4-H photo contest winners. We also plan to introduce a Master Gardeners' site devoted to answering gardening questions.

Cox Interactive Media is already operating in about 30 markets, and they are moving into markets across the county each year. The potential is there for other land-grant organizations to take advantage of similar opportunities.



Note: Media Metrix reports on 38 local markets and is the leading digital media audience measurement firm in the country. Their third quarter numbers come from reports based on reach, which is defined as the percentage of Atlanta Internet users visiting a site at least once during the month. Gainers are defined as sites with the highest percent growth of visitors from home and work from week to week.
AccessAtlanta.com's 25.6 percent reach is 2 .2 percentage points higher than the second quarter and 9.6 percentage points higher than the same time period last year.

*These numbers will require more study because the promotions were run on Thursdays which are our usual news release days and generate some extra traffic on their own.