SUPPORT ARTS + CULTURE

THE SIREN is a digital publication that promotes arts and culture in our area, and has been publishing since January of 2024. It’s time to see if THE SIREN has legs and can stand as a sustainable resource for the community. The goal for 2025 is to raise $10k. Current operations costs are $17k per year. This year’s campaign is intended to cover material / software / platform / utility costs, acquire some much needed equipment, and partially offset labor costs.

THE SIREN believes that access to information and visibility in the community should be available to all. Small businesses, artists, or organizations on tight budgets don’t need to concerned about having to pay-to-play. If you’re doing something that fits the mission of this publication, you’ll be included regardless of contribution.

THE START

THE SIREN started as a fairly nebulous New Years resolution to do what I could to highlight the amazing artists, makers, and small businesses in the tiny city of Waitsburg. Thanks to an icy cold-snap, the website was cobbled together in the first couple weeks of January 2024, and the first social media post happened on January 27. The $8k flip sign calendar I wanted for the Main Street window was out of my shoestring budget, so Simply Sawdust’s Gloria Wilson made me a special jig and set me up with a drill press so I could modify some Arc notebook disks to create an interchangeable paper calendar that highlights ten events at a time. And so it began.

CURRENT STATE

THE SIREN currently:

• maintains a website featuring artists, businesses + events

• posts weekly calendar updates to social media accounts as well as the occasional ‘OBSERVED’ post noting local activities or oddities

• publishes a weekly ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT UPDATE  email newsletter featuring local artists, musicians, and happenings

• updates a physical calendar window display located at 139 Main Street, Waitsburg 

Growth has been organic, steady, and generally well-received, despite the limited focus on marketing and complete absence of advertising spend. Requests have been made by users of THE SIREN to expand to surrounding locations, and this is currently being tested with friends from our creative tribe in the area.

THE SIREN serves multiple audiences to promote local events and artists, with majority of our website visits from Washington state, and less than 10% of those from Waitsburg, followed by Oregon and California. Some of the data is cloaked by privacy settings f the end user and can’t be known due to randomization efforts by platforms and browsers.

WEBSITE TRAFFIC. The website currently has +207% readership Year-Over-Year, with a +267% growth in unique visitors, 4.1k total, and 7.3k page views. The largest traffic source on the website is ‘Direct’ at 58.9% with a devoted group accessing the website from saved phone screen icons and browser bookmarks, followed by 22% ‘Search’, 16% referrals from the City of Waitsburg and The Royal Block websites, and 1%+ from Social. This suggests a strong use by people planning to visit Waitsburg, and is functioning exactly as designed linking users directly to businesses and event websites rather than driving additional activity on the website. The ‘Welcome’ page (containing the next ten events and collection display of ‘Explore’ items) has an average visit time of 2 minutes 12 seconds indicating a very healthy viewing duration.

SOCIAL MEDIA. Social media posts demonstrate low engagement (likes or comments) but high view counts (average 21 visits per account within the past 90 days) with 78.3% from followers on Instagram, vs an anemic 12.9% from followers on Facebook. My sense both from the data and anecdotal evidence suggests that people read to get the information they need and move on, just as I post and move on. No effort has been made to set up measurable activities, like driving people to dedicated pages or tracking movement.

Outside of organic posting, ’liking’ businesses posts, or sharing their content, no effort has been made to cultivate social media growth, and a streak of cross-posting failures have occurred from Instagram to Facebook, so the lack of engagement on Facebook is logical. Algorithmic quirks and questionable business practices make me reluctant to invest deeply in social media, but this could be an area to focus on to expand reach moving forward.

THE FUNDING. As a self-published passion project, THE SIREN has been self-funded and excluding website development costs for new initiatives, pencils out to roughly $1,300 for software/technical/hosting costs annually, another $300 or so for physical materials, and takes about 500+ hours of labor to produce annually. Currently, THE SIREN holds no dedicated equipment, doesn’t contribute to onsite utility or real estate costs, and exists at the will and funding of one person. As pointed out by concerned businesses and community members who feel they aren’t directly contributing but wish for THE SIREN to continue publishing, this isn’t ideal. We are now evaluating ways to make THE SIREN sustainable.

THE MISSION

WHERE WE’RE GOING

Overall, the goal for 2026 is to expand the reach both in readership and geographical location. We are currently determining the roadmap, and all donors and sponsors have a voice to help determine the direction. Suggestions already made within our business community include:

• The addition of mapped itineraries linking events to encourage fun visits to the area and build community connection between our creative tribes and venues.

• A small pocket-sized ‘field guide’ physical publication which describes various venues and activities for visitors which can also serve as a keepsake for visitors and small businesses alike.

• A single sheet tabloid publication printed and distributed through the local newspapers or as a stand-alone, either weekly or monthly. This could be made available to sponsor’s venues throughout the valley if adequate funding were achieved.

Donate to THE SIREN and help us plan our path!