Introducing CiB Supporters

Starting today there’s a new way to support Created in Birmingham and help make it sustainable.

It’s called CiB Supporters, costs £75 for 1 year and you can sign up here now.

But wait, there’s an introductory offer!

Oh yes indeedy. Until 10 December (or the first 50 takers, whichever comes first) you can sign up for just £50! Bearing in mind it costs £50 to advertise on the site for a week, that’s dirt cheap. (NB – The offer is only open to online sign-ups – if you need invoicing it’ll cost the full £75. Email us here for that).

In return, you get:

• Your advert/logo (125×125 pixel block) shown on rotation in CiB’s sidebar and linking to your website
• Your advert/logo shown on the CiB Supporters page and linking to your website
• A mention in that month’s ‘Thank You’ post
• Listing on the Supporters tab on the CiB Facebook Page
• Your Twitter name (if you have one) in the CiB Supporters List
• A specially commissioned Christmas card (if you’re a supporter prior to 10 December and you provide your address)

In addition you’ll be helping to make Created in Birmingham sustainable and (although it shouldn’t need saying) you’ll have our thanks too. In fact, we’ll try and find extra ways to thank our supporters over the year.

Please note, if you want to change your advert/logo over the course of the year it’ll cost an extra £15 per change.

We’ve already had a few takers which is superb (and means we’re definitely sending some Christmas cards). You can see those nice peoples in the sidebar on the right already.

I’ve taken the liberty of asking myself a few questions about this, in a contrived way of explaining things a little more. If you have any more questions then please drop me an email or leave a comment.

Why this approach?

We think £75 should put large and small organisations on a similar footing. From our point of view it’s a lot simpler to manage a programme like this than to run weekly advertising (although we’ll be doing that too). We’ve eschewed the option of means-related charging – partly because it’s trickier to administrate, partly because it’s nice how the CiB format treats small and large (roughly) the same.

Who is this aimed at?

CiB helps promote a lot of arts/cultural/etc organisations in the city – I’m hoping that they’ll chip in to help ensure that there’s an outlet for their work.

There’s also a lot of companies that I’m sure would love to market themselves to arts organisations and/or the sort of audience that Created in Birmingham attracts.

Finally, on a cost per impression basis, £75 is incredibly cheap – it’s sale of the century, folks!

What about other people who want to support the site in some way?

People are welcome to use a photo of themselves and link to, for instance, their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profiles. Otherwise, we’re looking at other ways for people to support the site – through the many and varied CiB Projects, for example.

Does being a CiB Supporter guarantee me editorial coverage?

Just the mention in the monthly ‘Thank You’ round-up.