It’s hard to believe that we’ve done Dining Month every October for the last seven years. It’s one of our two annually recurring theme months – along with Bar Month in February – and it’s a lot of fun to produce.
Someone asked me recently why OnMilwaukee.com created Dining Month, and why we picked October? The answer isn’t that complicated, really, but if you’re interested, I’m happy to share the methods behind our madness.
Since we are a for-profit business, the first reason, of course, is that dining articles are among the most popular content we write, and each year, we land a major sponsor to underwrite Dining Month. This year, we brought on Potawatomi, and since it’s important to head into the fourth quarter with strong revenue, this is a key piece of our fiscal puzzle.
We chose October because we can do a better job of projecting inventory when our site traffic is as level as possible. Before these theme months existed, we saw a huge bump in visitors and page impressions during the summer – thanks to our awesome festival season – and a secondary increase around the holidays. The slowest times were fall and mid-winter.
But, by loading up the site with dining content in October and bar content in February, we reversed that trend. Now, these normally slow months are actual equal, and sometimes larger than, June and July. That allows us to better manage long-term advertising campaigns and make them as effective as possible for our literally hundreds of current clients.
And finally, we love the Milwaukee dining scene, and we know you do, too. We’ve tried a few other themed months, and they haven’t been as successful. For example, we experimented with Green Month a couple of years ago, and it didn’t resonate with readers. Now, we’ll keep those down to a week in length, which is pretty manageable – and no, we won’t be repeating Sex Week anytime soon.
So I hope you enjoy all the special dining content this month. We have tons of great ideas that we’ve never seen anywhere else. And if there’s something you want to see, just let me know. We’ll certainly take your ideas into consideration.
Happy Dining Month, Milwaukee!
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
