What is the Marketplace? It is, as the name suggests, a collection of many components of our community: families, services, arts, homes & gardens, places to play, people, schools, and businesses.

History

My partner & I had each had past experience in publishing local magazine, each with a little different spin. We met many times discussing the possibilities. What worked, what didn't work and what we had hoped for. After coming up with our general prototype, we decided to take it to the "masses." We knew for it to be successful, it needed to serve two audiences - the reader and the advertisers.

Our Research With Readers

We developed several focus groups of each audience.
We asked readers:

• What do you want to see in a community magazine?
• What is important to you?
• Would you be interested and read such a magazine?
• What would you not like to see?

Their answers were much as we expected with some variations.
They want it local, local, local. They hated to see an article in the newspaper about our current heat wave with a photo of kids from Michigan playing in a water fountain. What? We have no cute kids here in Contra Costa playing in the water?

They did not want to see anything negative. They wanted light, interesting, fun articles. Above else, they wanted things to do in Contra Costa. "What's going on this weekend?" "Give us somewhere to go we have not yet thought of." "Introduce us to new people and their stories."

Our Research With Advertisers

At similar focus groups with the advertisers, we asked them:

• What are your advertising needs?
• What do you feel works best for your business?
• What is important to you when making your advertising decisions?

They were more precise with their remarks.

• Advertisers want their ad to be affordable or cheap.
• They wanted to reach everyone
• They wanted guaranteed delivery.
• They wanted it read… hopefully more than once.
• They wanted it to be effective.

They were concerned about the placement of their ads in the newspaper. Nobody wanted to be below the article about a tragic murder or terrorist bombings.

I guess you can say they wanted it ALL.

Who wouldn't? It's their hard earned money. It's their livelihood. It is IMPORTANT.

The Design

So we took our information and completed our design.

We came up with the Contra Costa Marketplace! It is direct mailed to over 50,000 homes in Hercules, Rodeo, Pinole, El Sobrante, Richmond, San Pablo, Pt. Richmond, Richmond Marina and El Cerrito.

Other free publications in town do not meet the major criteria of guaranteed delivery as they are just picked up at stands.

Its articles are written 100% by Contra Costa residents about their local areas. They are dedicated in large about events taking place in Contra Costa communities, people and businesses, arts, community services and service clubs as well as homes, gardening, restaurants, family, all specific to our area.

We specifically designed it with a built in "shelf life". Studies show the calendar of events, recipes, articles providing details and phone numbers, and the convenient size, gives reason to keep it and refer back to the magazine throughout the month.

The magazine has an attractive color, glossy cover with web press printing inside. Web press is the only way to keep the advertising affordable to small businesses especially since we gave far more weight to the need of distribution. We believed it was more important to get the publication into the hands of the readers and potential customers of our advertisers than glossy paper throughout the inside. We choose the expense of postage and the "guaranteed delivery" vs. the glossy look, which was not of great importance to our advertising focus group. We believed if we had the content, the quality and the delivery, we would have the publication we hoped for.

We are proud of the Marketplace.

We constantly hear how so many people read it and love it.

Our writers are often stopped and praised.

Our advertisers are thrilled with the response from their ads. We are thanked for running this article or that series or making someone aware of a certain attraction.

We give back to our community by publishing a non-profit or service club feature and donating $100 back to their group.

We are grateful for the opportunity to have created our own successful business in Contra Costa with the Marketplace.