According to GayUniverse Marketing Director Tony Hauser, an online gay/lesbian consumer census demonstrated that the numbers behind the new venture made sense. That study concluded that 41 percent of gay men live in small suburbs or rural communities.
However, it wasn’t the census that inspired the move to local boards.
“Even before the numbers, we were getting emails from users saying that they wanted boards that catered to a very specific area,” Hauser said. “With the new boards, we’re able to give users what they want, even if we weren’t aware of the community before they contacted us.”
While users are the primary beneficiaries of the website’s new local flavor, Hauser predicts value added for advertisers as well.
“Advertisers can use the local boards to target their ads to a specific community,” Hauser said. “The possibilities are endless. We can give them [advertisers] ads that appear statewide, in a specific county or even a small town or particular suburb.”
In addition to the 650 U.S. boards, Hauser said that GayUniverse plans to launch more than 100 similar international boards in early May.
“Those boards will be a great resource for travelers to learn about a gay community in a foreign country before they go,” Hauser said.
According to Hauser, the new boards have increased site traffic already and gotten a good response from users, many of whom rely on the Internet exclusively for access to their local gay communities.
