From: "Seymour, Janet I - WHS" <Janet.Seymour@wisconsinhistory.org> Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:44:06 -0600 Subject: List Serve FW: This Old House & PreservationDirectory.com Pick Beloit WI Message-ID: <488E289A5C909049B0E55F6B651B5B35019EEF7A00BA@MEWMAD0PC01G02.accounts.wistate.us>
Congratulations to Beloit! This Old House <http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/
photos/0,,20343206,00.html> in conjunction with PreservationDirectory<http:
//goog_1266382123753>.com<http://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPr
eservation/Home.aspx> has chosen Beloit as among the Best Old House Neighbo
rhoods for 2010<http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20343298_20738525
,00.html>.
Click on the links above or visit to learn more: http://www.thisoldhouse.co
m/toh/photos/0,,20343298_20738525,00.html.
Janet
Join the Local History List Serve! Send an email to: Join the Local History List Serve! Send an email to: localhistory@listserve
.uwec.edu<mailto:localhistory@listserve.uwec.edu> and type SUBSCRIBE in the
body of the email, with no other text. View past messages archived at: htt
p://listserve.uwec.edu/localhistory/.
Janet Seymour
Field Services Representative - Northern Region, Wisconsin Historical Socie
ty
c/o Department of History, UW-Eau Claire
105 Garfield Avenue Eau Claire WI 54701
Voice: 715-836-2250
Collecting, Preserving, and Sharing Stories Since 1846
________________________________
From: Penkiunas, Daina J - WHS
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 8:44 AM
To: Wyatt, Amy D - WHS; Seymour, Janet I - WHS; Bernstein, Rick A - WHS; De
Rose, Joe R - WHS
Subject: FW: This Old House & PreservationDirectory.com Pick Beloit WI
We have to feature Rick McGrath as one of our speakers this year! He has do
ne amazing things in Beloit. See the chain of emails below. If everyone is
in agreement, I will approach him for a presentation.
Janet: Do you think their news is an appropriate posting for the listserv?
This Old House <http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20343206,00.html>
in conjunction with PreservationDirectory<http://goog_1266382123753>.com<h
ttp://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx> has c
hosen Beloit as among the Best Old House Neighborhoods for 2010<http://www.
thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20343298_20738525,00.html>.
Daina Penkiunas
National Register Coordinator
Wisconsin Historical Society
816 State St
Madison WI 53706
608-264-6501
608-264-6504 (fax)
daina.penkiunas@wisconsinhistory.org<mailto:<mailto:daina.penkiunas@wisconsinhistor
y.org>
www.wisconsinhistory.org<http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/>
Collecting, Preserving and Sharing Stories Since 1846
________________________________
From: Rick McGrath [mailto:nesnabeloit@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 5:36 PM
To: Penkiunas, Daina J - WHS
Subject: Re: This Old House & PreservationDirectory.com Pick Beloit WI
Thanks Daina,
Pardon the long answer to your short question. :)
I have a modest network of friends in other Illinois communities from when
I lived in IL, specifically Elgin and Rock Island<http://www.broadwaydistri
ct.org/>. We communicate via email, subscribe to each others eNewsletters a
nd such. Anyway I'd seen almost two years ago a mention that This Old House
was accepting nominations. So I pulled one together and submitted it.
Last year (their 2nd yr. doing this) as you may know the nod went to a neig
hborhood in Milwaukee. The Illinois community that got it were my good frie
nds in Elgin's Gifford Park Association<http://www.gifford-park-assoc.org>.
They were also recognized by the National Trust last year.
Anyway, rather then doing some old-school snail-mail submission, email, Pow
erPoint or PDF I elected to submit an html formatted eNewsletter. This form
at allowed me to maintain a brief application but still include a raft of l
inks to various community sites (if) the reader was interested to see more.
I'll send you a copy of the submission as a separate email. You'll see it
in your inbox titled "Copy of Copy of The Best Place To Buy An Old House >
Beloit WI 2009" It's a different, older look-n-feel to our current branding
on the site and accompanying eNewsletter. I'll be wrapping up the next one
for our next meeting this evening. I'll include you on that distribution a
s well. We have a little over 100 emails in our distribution or ~ 70 househ
olds.
Hard to say if our website had anything to do with it. I certainly made sur
e they had links to see it. Of the fifty-one states and the one Canadian co
mmunity cited only two other communities got links to their neighborhood/co
mmunity websites. And these websites are not much. As such a quality websit
e was likely not a deciding factor as few have them and those that do typic
ally are not so good. On our website I link to the six communities that wer
e the "Editor's Choice"<http://nesnabeloit.org/neighborhood-discussion/this
-old-house-magazine-beloit-wi/>. I Googled to find the links.
The only other communities that received a link on This Old House website:
* Butte Montana<http://www.buttecpr.org/>
* Northwest Quadrant, Beaufort, South Carolina<http://www.historicbeaufo
rt.org/>
I have analytics on the site so I can track traffic to the site, where it's
coming from (geographic as well as if it's from another website, a search
engine etc. etc.), how long they stay on the site, what pages they visit, w
hat search terms brought them to the site and more. Fortunately This Old Ho
use included a link to our site from their website. So I've seen a signific
ant increase in traffic as a result. I can also see where in the country th
ey're checking us out from etc.
Unfortunately our own newspaper and the one down in Rockford IL were not qu
ite as savvy or generous as to include a link. Probably don't know any bett
er would be my guess.
It's been interesting to me to see that the local paper put this on page 6
behind a lot of other news that seem to me much more routine. Oh well. I'll
be meeting with the city council next week. Will be trying to leverage thi
s as best we can.
Perhaps if you and/or the state SHPO were to send a note to our city manage
r and/or the paper's editors it might help... if you'd be willing.
Larry Arft (city manager)
arftl@ci.beloit.wi.us<mailto:arftl@ci.beloit.wi.us>
Steve Greg (asst. city manager)
steve@ci.beloit.wi.us<mailto:steve@ci.beloit.wi.us>
Bill Barth (Beloit Daily News Editor)
bbarth@beloitdailynews.com<mailto:bbarth@beloitdailynews.com>
Thanks,
Rick
___________________________________
Rick McGrath
Principal - Resonate Web Marketing
www.ResonateWebMarketing.com<http://www.ResonateWebMarketing.com>
On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Penkiunas, Daina J - WHS <Daina.Penkiunas@
wisconsinhistory.org<mailto:Daina.Penkiunas@wisconsinhistory.org>> wrote:
Rick: Congratulations! Do you know how they came to pick Beloit? Did your w
ebsite have anything to do with your being noticed?
Daina Penkiunas
National Register Coordinator
Wisconsin Historical Society
816 State St
Madison WI 53706
608-264-6501
608-264-6504 (fax)
daina.penkiunas@wisconsinhistory.org<mailto:<mailto:daina.penkiunas@wisconsinhistor
y.org>
www.wisconsinhistory.org<http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/>
Collecting, Preserving and Sharing Stories Since 1846
________________________________
From: Rick McGrath [mailto:nesnabeloit@gmail.com<mailto:<mailto:nesnabeloit@gmail.c
om>]
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 8:49 AM
To: Penkiunas, Daina J - WHS; DeRose, Joe R - WHS
Cc: Rick Dexter; John Watrous; Bill & Deb Dorr; Joy Beckman
Subject: This Old House & PreservationDirectory.com Pick Beloit WI
Hey Daina & Joe,
Don't know if you've heard the big news...
This Old House <http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20343206,00.html>
in conjunction with PreservationDirectory<http://goog_1266382123753>.com<h
ttp://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx> have
chosen Beloit as among the Best Old House Neighborhoods for 2010<http://www
.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20343298_20738525,00.html>.
They've posted it on their website. I understand the magazine hits news sta
nds this Friday.
I just got a call from our assistant city manager, Steve Gregg. I understan
d a Madison News Crew will be coming down for some sort of coverage. Woot.
Of course I've just updated the website<http://nesnabeloit.org/neighborhood
-discussion/this-old-house-chooses-beloit-wi/> and will be broadcasting els
ewhere online. There will be more going on around town too of course. This
sort of national coverage could really help with both our external audience
but also our own Beloit internal audience.
-- Thanks, Rick========================= Rick McGrath www.beloitnpa.org<http://www.beloitnpa.org> rick@beloitnpa.org<mailto:rick@beloitnpa.org> 847-431-0710
-- Thanks, Rick========================= Rick McGrath www.beloitnpa.org<http://www.beloitnpa.org> rick@beloitnpa.org<mailto:rick@beloitnpa.org> 847-431-0710