News and special interests are about connecting people – connecting people with their community, connecting people with their world, and connecting people with a common cause or interest to each other. Print publications used to be the primary medium used to make that connection. Not anymore. Existing publications still have a valuable asset in their subscriber base, but time is rapidly running out for them to leverage that connection. With so many new alternatives for your subscriber base, how do you help your organization successfully make the transition to the Internet age and not get left behind?

Connect with your readers or constituents, get them involved with your publication, brand, or cause, and keep them logging in every day to see what is happening in their community. Grow your community with iMrkr's patent pending viral loop system. Then maximize your sites monetary potential by up-selling the promotional and viral ‘micro community' capabilities of your iMrkr powered site to your existing sponsors, advertisers, and community members. And we haven't forgotten that at the end of the day, it is about content as well – easily manage your multi-media rich site with best-in-class publishing tools.

• You and your advertisers and sponsors are able to create a unique customer experience: With ever-increasing competition for the consumer's attention, how do you enable your sponsors and community members to improve their marketing efforts to ensure they reach the right people? Customized, personally branded iMrkr's linked to interactive promotional campaigns! Custom branded iMrkrs directly send their customers to where they can pull down custom content, unique offerings, and exclusive product samples. Enable your sponsors and advertisers to make their customers members and active participants into their own ‘micro community' – creating a true customer experience that keeps them coming back for more.
• Product and Service testimonials: Ever gone somewhere new, or just wanted to try something you haven't? How do you get the real story on a product or service offered in your publications? You don't have the man power to review and comment on every product available to your readers… so why not recruit their help? Give your readers a way to signup and share their experiences with the rest of your community. Improve the draw of your on-line presence with the use of compelling user created, grass-roots content.
• Improved citizen journalism: – Give your community a voice - increased constituent interaction through citizen journalism. Give your readers a voice to communicate with your editors and the community in which they live. With the use of customized profiles, branded and customizable iMrkrs, and multimedia publishing, your readers can now become part of the team!

Summary:

• Max Paint paintball magazine's subscriber base was deteriorating from new Internet based competition.
• Max Paint implements an iMrkr Powered Site solution. The solution draws more traffic to the Max Paint site by enabling Max Paint site members to:
• set up their own profiles with blogs, pictures, event announcements, ties to the classified ads they have posted, and their own stories.
• use the Max Paint branded iMrkr ‘Dawgtagz' to promote their content to friends, the people they meet, and give to the paintballer that splats them in a game.
• Max Paint is able to leverage their established customer base to immediately tap into new revenue sources, including the lucrative used paintball gear market.
• Paintball teams and vendors set up their own micro-communities on the site, creating double viral loop growth.
• The micro-community sites not only bring more members to the site, and increased awareness of the Max Paint brand and magazine, but also bring more advertising sponsors.

Max Paint magazine caters to the paintball enthusiast market. Over the years they have benefited from the growth of the sport, and now have a respectable size circulation for their bi-monthly magazine. However, with the growth of the sport, new competition has arisen, particularly in the on-line world, and recently Max Paint has seen its subscription numbers begin to slide. Max Paint has a web site, and does publish some of its content on the site, but the sites capabilities are basic and don't include any on-line classified ads, or community generated content and participation. Max Paint needs some better ammo to stay in the game.

Max Paint implements an iMrkr Powered Site solution. The solution enables Max Paint's readers to set up their own profiles with blogs, pictures, event announcements, ties to the classified ads they have posted, and their own stories. With the on-line classified ad system Max Paint is able to leverage their established customer base to immediately tap into the lucrative used paintball gear market. Max Paint's readers are able to use the Max Paint branded iMrkr ‘Dawgtagz' to promote their content to friends, the people they meet, and give to the paintballer that splats them in a game. This draws even more traffic to Max Paints site.

Max Paint sells business directory listings, service fronts (full page listings), and store fronts (e-commerce capable service front), to their sponsors and advertisers. Many of their advertisers, such as Zero Reflex paintball guns, add the ‘micro community' feature to their business directory listing. Zero Reflex gets custom branded iMrkr Dawgtagz to hand out to people during paintball events and conventions. During an event, John, captain of a semi-pro team, visits the Zero Reflex booth and picks one up. The Dawgtag takes John to their micro community portal. At the community portal, John reads the community members experience with Zero Reflex gear, and is invited to join the community to get entered into a free paintball gun giveaway. Once a member, John posts his own content about his experience with Zero Reflex gear, and gets to know other members of the community.

John decides to set up a micro community for his team – the Avengers. The Avengers get custom iMrkr Dawgtagz with their team's logo on them. The team members hand the Dawgtagz out to their friends and fans. The Dawgtagz take their fans to the community portal, where they can see the latest footage from the team's games, check the community events calendar to see when the next games and get togethers are, and can become members of the community. Once members, they are able to contribute to the site content and blogs, can invite their friends to become members, and can even set up their own micro community. That's what Mo's Bar and Grill, the sports bar in John's home town where the Avenger fans go to watch the games, does.

Mo's starts off by creating a business directory listing and posting ads on the Avenger community portal. Then Mo's decides to set up its own micro community. Mo's gets custom branded iMrkr's to hand out to customers that take the customers to their micro community portal. At Mo's community portal, customers can get to know the staff of Mo's, see Mo's menu, daily specials, and store hours. And when they join Mo's community, they can get a coupon for a free appetizer at Mo's and other specials. Mo's staff regularly reviews the profiles of, and interacts with, the members of Mo's community so they can do a better job of greeting them by name when they come in, and be aware of special occasions. The members of Mo's micro community also interact with each other, posting blogs, pictures, and event announcements on the micro community site. For Mo's customers, going to Mo's becomes much more than just another place to get a good burger and a cool drink, it becomes a place to go where they know everyone, and everyone knows them – a unique customer experience. All of this activity grows further support and visibility for John's team, and makes finding team sponsors easier.

Meanwhile, back at Max Paint, the micro communities like Zero Reflex, the Avengers, and Mo's Bar and Grill, are creating a double viral loop boost to the Max Paint brand. More people are visiting Max Paint on-line, posting more classified on the magazines site, thereby creating more advertising revenue for Max Paint. Some of those people are choosing to subscribe to Max Paint as well, boosting their print circulation. Max Paint also starts printing a community section with the most popular community generated content. This energizes their community to create even more community generated content and tell their friends about it, which creates even more interest in the magazine, and further increases site visits and circulation, which results in more advertising and classified ads revenue.

Features:

• Site development/integration/replication
• Complete site hosting, 24/7 monitoring, and technical customer service
• Full multi-media site content management and publishing
• Site-wide web advertising optimization
• Branded and customizable iMrkrs
• Micro Community Portals Capable
• Multiple Secured Profiles
• Community Calendars
• Profile based Multi media publishing
• Individual Blogs
• Community Classifieds
• Business Listings
• Storefronts

Benefits:

• Integrates iMrkr powered viral loop dynamics into your web presence.
• Generates and taps into new revenue streams from the community activity on your site.
• Builds an exclusive community around your business.
• Provides your sponsors, advertisers, and community members with:
• Intelligent networking: share what you want with who you want to have it.
• Micro Community portals.
• Micro Community and Personal promotion tools.
• The ideal middle ground to contact and connect with others.
• The ability to completely personalize what is shared with others.
• Lowers the risks associated with social interactions.
• The physical iMrkr itself can be used to make a statement, or portray a certain image.
• On-line profile aggregation.