An overview of Ipswich.co.uk's first week following our launch on Monday.
It started with a post on LinkedIn
Where to start? What a week.
What started as a trial run quickly snowballed into something much more akin to a full launch. At the time of writing, my announcement on LinkedIn has been:
Viewed 23,000+ times
Liked by 544 people
Commented on 263 times
Reposted 22 times
That translated into:
2,600+ unique visitors to the site
400+ subscribers to our daily roundup
150+ messages from Ipswich residents, business owners and general well-wishers
And the best news? We don't officially launch until next week! I've been absolutely bowled over by your support and enthusiasm, so thank you.
Our first week of coverage
Our reporting style was somewhat of an experiment, but your initial feedback has been very positive, so we will stick with it.
Our focus is on telling you what's happened, what it means and what you can do about it, and then letting you get on with the rest of your day.
We've covered 48 stories in our first week. And when I say "we", I mean "me". I won't lie. This has been a massive challenge. I've worked from 7am to 1am every day to juggle covering the most important stories with the launch planning for next week and the day-to-day running of the business. But it's been worth it.
Product updates
We've already received some incredible and invaluable feedback. Every single bit of it – literally – has been constructive. We've gone a whole week without a single troll. I can say from 15 years of experience in this industry, that doesn't happen often.
We've been busy trying to action as much of it as possible. In addition to lots of bugfixes, here's the highlights:
Daily roundup emails
There were a few teething problems with the template and my first typo in the first couple of editions, but these have been resolved now. We're working on a weekly version for those who don't want a daily version. Hopefully, it will be coming soon, so stay subscribed, and we'll keep you posted.
Infinite articles
Now, when you get to the bottom of the article, you can keep scrolling to continue reading every story from the last 2 days without having to click.
Make me happy button
Lots of you have asked for more positive news, but I wanted to find a solution that didn't deprioritise important but less positive stories. I think this does that. Tap the button, and you'll go to a news feed with every positive story about our town. You can filter it by topic, too.
Hide the subscription panel on the homepage
When you subscribe to our daily roundup, you will no longer see the Subscribe panel at the top of the homepage each time you visit. If you visit on a different device, then you can check the box to hide it on that device, too.
Help us with our public launch next week!
Monday is a big day for us. We kick off our launch marketing with a radio campaign on GenX Radio Suffolk and Suffolk Sound and ad campaigns on Google and Facebook. If you see our ads on Facebook, don't forget to share or comment.
Share our content with friends, family, colleagues and any online communities you're a part of – every article you read has a handy "Click to copy" feature so you can paste the links anywhere you want to share our content
Subscribe to our daily roundup and encourage others to subscribe, too
Thanks for being part of such a special week, and I look forward to sharing another update with you next week.
