Although Barrington Town News launched in August 2019, over the past few months we have gained traction and growth in readership. Because of this growth, we wish to share with you some current areas to use for information exchanges, and how those work for the reader and for our sponsors.
Business Directory Listing: Although there are many business directory listings online, we are striving to make our directory listing focused on Barrington and surrounding areas. We are first-come, first-serve, giving first print privileges to local businesses. Businesses that are majority-owned by veterans, women, and/or other minorities are given a discount, and pricing is tiered based on business size, or annual gross income. We encourage small businesses to be listed (some of which is their only web presence), and we are unique in offering our non-profit sponsorship program. This program allows any business to sponsor a directory listing for a non-profit. The cost of the listing is donated to the non-profit by the sponsor – doubling their marketing dollars. One of the most unique things about our listing is that the software system we’ve enabled allows businesses to schedule appointments and send quotes through our system – providing low-cost commerce systems to local businesses.
Free Classified Ads and Job Postings: Our classified ads are free! That includes JOB POSTINGS! Did you know that if you drive on route 125 from the Lee traffic circle there are already 10 businesses posting help wanted signs? This is the digital age, and our online listings allow for links to online applications. A current Google search resulted in only 4 of those business job postings in the first 40 job listings when the search is “Jobs in Barrington, NH”. Working with our team, we can guarantee help with SEO keywords and targeted writing, for local business owners. We drive traffic through great SEO, games, contests and boosted posts for our sponsors.
Growing Web Presence: Over the last 3 months, our growth has exceeded the town population – which means we have an impact not only on the residents of Barrington, but our reach is expanding throughout the seacoast. By capitalizing on our IT backgrounds, and communication ability, this presence will continue to spread. Unlike traditional print newspapers who moved to the internet, we DO NOT CHARGE to read our paper – we rely on local sponsorship of local businesses to offset costs – even for our quarterly print edition, which may one day be monthly or even weekly when we get enough sponsorships from local businesses. Our first print edition was distributed to approximately 350 residents, while we plan on expanding our distribution to be up to 1,000 copies in the next edition, which will be heading out to local businesses in the coming week.
Upcoming Children’s Area: We want to increase literacy for children in our area. We are working on a junior journalist area, with a mascot, games, contests, and publication area for the local children. Our games and challenges will include fiction and non-fiction, and our goal is to work with local teachers to help support their curriculum while encouraging children in writing and visual arts. We will be unveiling our mascot in the near future - his name is B.A. Rington, and he really likes Barrington!
Local Online Store: We are also building an online store that offers products to support children’s literacy, local tourism, and other local goods. Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information on sponsorship and sales of local products and goods. There will be coffee mugs, clothing, backpacks, phone cases, and many other products available for purchase in the upcoming future featuring unique brands and our new company mascot. We're working on dozens of poses of our mascot, depicted like everyday Barrington residents.
Online Technical Support System: Minutes ago, we released our online help system that has chat capabilities, and we've made numerous updates to improve our website to make it more user-friendly. Now you'll see offers for help on all of the featured parts of our website, like the Business Directory, our Classifieds, our Document Downloads, our Event Calendar, and many other features that you may not even know about. There is a knowledge base of technical support articles in the support system, and you can chat directly with the Founder of Barrington Town News simply by clicking on one of the messages that pop up, or by clicking on the support button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
New Website Features: We've added voting to all articles, so you can select how many stars (up to 5) and vote based on how much you like the article to help provide us feedback on how we are doing. The scores will be averaged based on all submissions, and you can only submit a vote once. We've also added options (expanded from the gear logo) that allow you to print a printer-friendly version of any article, or email the article to friends or family, directly through the website. We've improved our login and registration system, and you can also submit news articles as the privilege of registering for an account on our website. Anyone that is logged in can submit a news article to our website, and we will moderate and edit the articles, publishing only those that met the criteria of our Content Guidelines. This allows local businesses and non-profits to submit Press Releases that meet our Content Guidelines directly to our newsroom through our website.
If you would like to help grow and develop our local community through positive news articles or featured photography, or business development for Barrington Town News, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., as we are looking for partners, sponsors, and team members! Thank you for continuing to read our stories, and we hope you'll continue to look forward to new ventures by Barrington Town News –- Your Local News Source.