Advertise with Verve

Anyone who has spent time in the fiddle and mandolin world knows that the best advertising has always been a note on the right bulletin board. The card tacked up at the music store, the flyer by the door at the contra dance, the word passed along at a session: it works because it reaches people who already care. Over the past decade and more, a lot of those bulletin boards have moved online, into Facebook groups where players trade tunes, ask about setups, buy and sell instruments, and talk about the music they love.

We have been building and looking after communities like that for a long time, and we are now offering a limited number of advertising placements in them through Verve Advertising, the advertising and marketing side of Verve.

Where your ad appears

Our network falls into three groups. The first is mandolin and fiddle communities, several of them with more than 10,000 members, made up of players, teachers and builders who talk about instruments every day. The second is instrument buy and sell groups, a couple of them over 15,000 members, where people come specifically to find gear. The third is local Pioneer Valley groups covering Northampton, Granby and South Hadley, Hadley, Amherst and UMass, and Holyoke, the largest of them with more than 2,000 members. Many of these groups have been active for over ten years, which matters: an audience that has stuck around that long trusts the space, and that trust is what makes an ad worth reading.

We place each ad only in the groups where it fits. A bow maker belongs in front of fiddlers. A pet sitter in Northampton belongs in the Northampton group, not in a mandolin forum with members in different countries. Matching the ad to the audience is the whole job, and it is the reason we keep the number of placements small.

Rates

• Trial post: $150. For first-time advertisers, one post so you can see how it goes.
• Single post: $500.
• Monthly: $1,600. Four weekly posts.
• Annual: $15,600. Fifty-two weekly posts, or $1,300 a month on an annual agreement.

How it works

Every ad is reviewed and approved by us before it runs, and every ad is paid for before it is published. We are protective of these communities, so we will turn down anything that doesn't serve the members, however much it pays. We also won't promise what nobody can honestly promise: there are no guaranteed impressions, leads or sales. What we can promise is that your ad goes in front of the right people, in groups they actually read, and that it won't be buried under a pile of spam, because keeping the spam out is part of what we do.

If you make, sell, repair or teach something these communities would want to know about, or you run a local business in the Valley, get in touch through our contact page, message us on Facebook, or email verve413@gmail.com. Tell us what you'd like to promote and who you're hoping to reach, and we'll tell you where it fits.

The right people, the right board. That's the whole idea.