AFP sponsors 2012 Business Showcase
Augusta Free Press LLC is a major sponsor of the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce 2012 Business Showcase.
The Showcase will be held at the Best Western Inn & Suites Conference Center in Waynesboro on Thursday.
The event is free and open to the public from 1-5 p.m. Read more
Debut: AFP Web TV
Augusta Free Press debuts AFP Web TV with a segment featuring owners Chris and Crystal Graham talking about the 10-year anniversary of AFP, details on the upcoming Building the Machine 101 classes being offered by AFP Business and the premieres of several new AFP web TV commercials.
AFP builds web video promoting Waynesboro Y
Augusta Free Press debuted today a new online video promoting the Waynesboro Family YMCA.
The Virtual Tour stars YMCA Executive Director Jeff Fife, who in the video takes viewers on a tour of the Y’s fitness, swim and child-care facilities.
AFP editor Chris Graham filmed, edited and produced the video.
To inquire about AFP video services, contact us at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Fashion Debut gets you to ‘think spring’
It may feel like the dead of winter, but it’s also time to begin thinking ahead to spring fashions.
“I think people are probably looking for a good excuse to think spring,” said Crystal Graham of Augusta Free Press, which is presenting the 2012 Spring Fashion Debut on Saturday, Feb. 11, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the WTA’s Gateway, 329 W. Main St., Downtown Waynesboro.
The 2012 Spring Fashion Debut will preview new spring lines from more than 15 vendors for companies including Cookie Lee Jewelry, Dove Chocolate, Vault Denim, Jockey, Kelly’s Kids, Perfectly Posh, Stella and Dot, thirty one and more.
The Spring Fashion Debut, sponsored exclusively by Realtor Kathleen Kellett, will be part of a busy Saturday in Downtown Waynesboro, which will also play host on Feb. 11 to a Love Is In The Air promotion including a Chocolate Walk being put on by downtown merchants. Read more
Augusta Free Press: 10 Years and Counting
On the heels of its most successful year ever in 2011, Augusta Free Press LLC will mark its 10th year in business in 2012.
“Our focus in this anniversary year is the same as it has been for us from day one – building on our success both for ourselves and for our growing list of corporate partners,” said Chris Graham, the president of Augusta Free Press LLC, founded in 2002.
The growth in corporate partners was the big news of 2011 for AFP, which completed more than 75 website projects for its partners, including a family of websites for the Valley Program for Aging Services and its nine local senior centers, and new websites for Mathers Construction, Barren Ridge Vineyards, Fishburne Military School, Alpha Vision Films, the Virginia Awards for Country Music and The Gateway Theatre. Read more
Augusta Health places online ad with AugustaFreePress.com
Augusta Health has become an online partner of AugustaFreePress.com, agreeing to a one-year contract for an ad on the news website promoting the Fishersville-based medical-services organization.
Augusta Health is an independent, nonprofit community hospital with a mission to promote the health and well-being of our community through access to excellent care. In 2011, Augusta Health is the only hospital in Virginia to be recognized as a 100 Top Hospital by Thomson Reuters, receive both the Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence and Patient Safety Awards from HealthGrades, and be named a finalist for the Foster G. McGaw Prize from the American Hospital Association for community service.
For more information about Augusta Health, its programs or its services, go online to www.AugustaHealth.com.
AugustaFreePress.com is an independent news organization providing coverage of local, state, national and international issues with a Greater Augusta-area focus. The website draws more than 100,000 unique visitors and 1 million page views monthly. The parent company of AugustaFreePress.com, Augusta Free Press LLC, provides clients with marketing and PR solutions including web design, magazine/brochure, TV/radio, social media and overall marketing campaign design and implementation.
For more information on advertising, marketing and web solutions from Augusta Free Press, contact Crystal Graham at freepress@ntelos.net.
AFP puts on successful Fashion Showcase
More than 100 shoppers were on hand for the 2012 Holiday Fashion Showcase sponsored by Augusta Free Press on Dec. 5.
Local vendors for direct-sales companies including Cookie Lee, Mary Kay, Jockey P2P, thirty-one, BeautiControl and Initial Outfitters joined local businesses Radiance Tanning and Hair Salon and Fordell Farm at the Showcase, a feature of which was a series of fashion shows with models decked out in some of the products that were for sale.
“It’s been a lot of fun to have different models here showcasing all of our vendors for people to enjoy,” said Crystal Graham, the event organizer and a Cookie Lee sales rep.
Graham got the idea for the event from her weekends spent with other vendors at shows reaching out to consumers with varying degrees of success.
“There are a lot of vendor shows offered in the region, and it’s hard to pick the ones that generate traffic,” Graham said. “I thought with the expertise that I’ve gained through Augusta Free Press that I could help put on an event that was sure to be successful.”
The steady flow of traffic at the Fashion Showcase – generated in part by a dedicated marketing effort that included extensive radio, newspaper and Facebook advertising – is a testament to a successful event formula.
“The Fashion Showcase has been great. It’s been a good crowd, great vendors, great products. The fashion show was wonderful. It’s just been a fun day,” said Linda Gail Johnson, a local Mary Kay sales representative.
“It’s a fabulous event. Lots of traffic, many vendors are here. Augusta Free Press did a great job marketing the event,” said Kathleen Kellett of Better Homes and Gardens/Real Estate III, an event sponsor and a model in the fashion show.
“If you didn’t make it this year, you’d better make it next!” Kellett said.
More online at www.WaynesboroFashion.com.
Chris Graham: Another reason to go flat
I’m still not sold on the flat-tax proposals that I’ve been hearing from the candidates on the 2012 campaign trail, but as to the general concept, yeah, I’m long since past being there.
I need to qualify myself here before I get too far. The flat tax, the idea that we’d assess the same tax rate to Warren Buffett that we do to the average part-time Walmart employee, no. I’m more in favor of what I hear called a fair-tax system that would set one higher rate for higher-income Americans, another for middle-income wage-earners and then a third rate for lower-income folks, with the other key defining feature to the system being the elimination of deductions.
Before you get too riled up about the loss of tax deductions, consider how much we pay in compliance costs. Small businesses (under $1 million in assets) pay close to $4 in compliance costs for every dollar of actual taxes paid. (Yikes!) Throw in the regressivity for low-wage individual taxpayers, who pay a much higher percentage of their income to comply with the tax code as higher wage-earners, and you see the pattern that disturbs me: Working- and middle-class families and small-business owners are spending too much on tax compliance for our economy’s good.
It does bother me that those who wage class warfare on behalf of the superwealthy have hijacked the flat-tax/fair-tax issue to be about reducing their already diminished contibutions to the public welfare. That should bother any of us who consider ourselves to be among the so-called 99 percent. Flat tax, fair tax, tax simplification, whatever you want to call it, only makes sense by reducing the burden on the classes that drive our economy – working- and middle-class families and small-business owners.
An added bonus: We all benefit by redirecting the money and brain power currently dedicated to tax compliance to other parts of our social and economic life.
Column by Chris Graham
AFP plans Fashion Showcase
Augusta Free Press LLC has teamed up with MDH Events to present Holiday Fashion Showcase on Sat., Dec. 3, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Gateway in Downtown Waynesboro.
“It’s a time of year where we all want to be as fashionable as possible,” said Crystal Graham of Augusta Free Press. “As part of our event-planning division, we wanted to explore some of the fall/winter fashion lines and display them for the community.”
The one-day fashion extravaganza is sponsored by Realtor Kathleen Kellett.
The fashion show will feature the latest styles for the fashionista in all of us with clothing, hand bags, jewelry, makeup and more.
Free admission. All those who attend will have the opportunity to win a free iPod courtesy of Realtor Kathleen Kellett. With any purchase, attendees will also have the opportunity to win $500 in fashion accessories.
The event is being held at The Gateway, 329 W. Main St., in Downtown Waynesboro. For more information on the event, visit www.waynesborofashion.com.
Chris Graham: Get your business in the paper
“My husband,” the caller was telling me, or I should say, selling me, “is an expert at finding financing options for people who think they have credit issues.”
“OK.”
“I think that’s a good news story.”
I didn’t. Actually, what this clearly was to me was an attempt by a small-business owner to get a free ad, which as the editor of a mom-and-pop news publication I wasn’t all that interested in.
You know, considering that whatever money I was making off the publication came in the form of paid ads.
Maybe if she’d made it easier for me, I wouldn’t have minded so much.
Write your own press release. If your business is used cars, as in the example above, and your trick is financing options, spell that out. I as the editor may still feel like you need to pay for an ad to deliver the message, but at least you’re not asking me to come out to your business to do an interview then return to my office to transcribe and write the story from scratch.
You’re better off if you don’t try to be so overt about what your aims are. The end goal of any good business press release, of course, is to get attention to your business and ultimately more customers for your business. You’re free to straddle the line of pushing your products and services and hoping for the best, but you’re more likely to have more success in getting your name in the paper by setting the target a bit lower. Sharing news about a new client or a new employee – or your employee of the year – is a much safer bet. Or mining the current-events headlines to see where you might be able to offer your expertise.
You’re also better off if you’re able to give the paper something that an editor can use almost verbatim in a news-brief column. Small- and medium-circulation papers have cut their newsrooms to the bone in recent years, and even with shrinking news holes still have a great demand for finished news products. If you can satisfy that need for news with a couple of paragraphs about your employee of the month or latest business venture, advantage you!
There’s no guarantee, of course, that your local paper will run every item that you send, and at times it may seem like they’re not interested in anything that you send. My advice as an editor is to not let that bother you. If you send out five press releases, 10 press releases, 20 press releases, and get one bite – that’s one bite of essentially free advertising that you’ve created for yourself.
At the same time, you’re creating fodder for your business website, email newsletter and your Facebook page.
You do have all of those working for you 24-7, right? If not, it’s time – double time! – to catch up.
Chris Graham is the editor of www.AugustaFreePress.com and owner of Augusta Free Press LLC, a full-service web design, marketing and PR firm based in Waynesboro, Va. Direct questions to him at augustafreepress2@gmail.com.
AFP to participate in business seminar at BRCC
Augusta Free Press LLC President Chris Graham will be among the featured speakers at a business conference at Blue Ridge Community College on Friday, Nov. 4.
“Make Your Art Your Business!” will offer artists and artisans detailed tips on how to generate business activity from their artwork.
Betty Hoge, a business analyst at the Small Business Development Center, will offer a talk on the topic of “Creating a Business Plan.” Other speakers include Phill Ungar from Cedar Hill Pottery, Deb Booth from Different Light Studio and Barbara Polin from Solace Studios.
Graham will speak on “PR/Marketing for Artists,” with advice and strategies for building interest through the web, Facebook and interactions with local newspapers, TV and radio.
The cost to attend the daylong seminar is $35.
To register, call BRCC at 540.453.2215. More information is available online at www.brcc.edu/wsce/nc-art.
Chris Graham: So much smoke and mirrors
Posted by afp on December 16, 2011 · 5 Comments
Looking here at my hometown of Waynesboro, where the City Council suddenly wants accountability from its School Board when it comes to budgeting. I’m all for enhancing accountability from any and all in government, so at first glance, I want to say, Good for you guys. Except that it’s not really about accountability. What we’re seeing here is yet another power grab from a City Council that has done pretty well for itself in that department.
Consider the politics that led to the current makeup of the City Council. All five can attribute their seats to campaigns that made early and often reference to votes by previous City Councils in favor of $700,000 in city funding for the $7 million Wayne Theatre redevelopment. We can now see that the repeated claims that those City Councils were engaging in the diversion of public money for a special-interest group were nothing more than a smokescreen considering the boondoggle that is the $3.4 million purchase of scrub land from key campaign donors ostensibly to go toward a 20-year plan to develop a city commerce park. Read more
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