We're proud to count 500 subscribers as Lifetime Lunatics.
And, upon serious consideration, we're now open to adding another 100 to the club.
At this time a year ago, we informed people that we were cutting off Lifetime sales at 500, out of concern that they'd eventually eat at our recurring revenue. And when that 500th was bought in mid-April, that was it. The end. Forever.
But a couple things have occurred since then:
1. Sales of new subscriptions picked up.
2. People never stopped asking about this.
Seriously, my wife Dali, who handles the Help account, gets requests from people every week to buy a Lifetime, nearly a year after they've been gone. And in turn, she's never stopped bringing it up. Thus, given both of the above variables, while still striving to protect future recurring revenue, we came up with the number 100 as a safe one to sell.
Here's how it works:
• The subscription to read this site/app, forever and ever, no matter what becomes of us, is $299. Buy it right here.
• If you're an existing subscriber and want to go Lifetime, do the same thing. Buy it right here. And then, email us at Help@DKPittsburghSports.com to let us know you did so. We'll refund the prorated remainder of your existing account.
• You're subscribed for life. No catch. You're stuck with us from now until Pittsburgh institutes jaywalking enforcement Downtown.
• You'll be given a personal tour of our offices and meet one or more of our staff. Ask the many existing Lifetime members who took us up on this, and they'll attest to there occasionally even being snacks on hand.
• We're going to begin building a cyber-wall, if you will, for all Lifetime members. We're not 100 percent sure how that'll look or work, but we'd been talking about this for a while, anyway, and this will only accelerate it.
Now comes the part where I have to remind everyone that we value all of our subscribers. Which we do. We'll hear from people who purposely pay on a monthly basis just so we can get the maximum payment. We'll hear from people who are one-year or three-year subscribers who buy multiple gift subscriptions. And of course, we hear from our fighting men and women worldwide, from whom we'll never take a penny, as we're grateful for what they do for our country.
The Lifetime avenue is just one of many we've found with which to connect with readers.
Thank you to everyone for making this place what it's become.
FROM THE EDITOR
Now that the annual NFL Meetings are behind us, the next stop on the NFL calendar is the draft at the end of April. It's the offseason, but no league spreads its offseason out to stay relevant quite like the NFL. Of course, its offseason is a little longer than the other major sports, but the NFL pretty much has something going on each month of the calendar.
With the NHL closing in on its postseason and MLB getting underway this week, it's a busy time of the year for us. But that's why we love doing the job. Bringing our readers all of the action is what we're here to do. -- Dale Lolley
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
Please help me welcome Fortify Franchising to our family of business partners.
Founded by a long time subscriber and Pittsburgh native, Fred Hildebrand, Fortify Franchising is a full-service national franchise consulting firm that partners with more than 500 well-vetted franchise companies across dozens of industries. Fortify Franchising’s no-cost consultative process helps prospective business owners identify and research franchise concepts that are available and viable within their target markets. In many cases, Fortify Franchising helps clients discover franchise concepts that clients may not have found on their own.
Here's their official video:
Thank you, Fred! -- Dali Kovacevic
ADVERTISE WITH US
Want to become one of those partners?
Our ability to reach people has never been as high as it is, and that extends far beyond our actual readership here on the site/app:
That's an average of 425,205 impressions per day on our company's official social media accounts, not including any of our various individual accounts. Now, add to that the average of 81,066 page views on the actual site/app, and it's roughly a half-million per day.
This is our brand new, updated 2019 media kit with all our essential data. If you're interested, contact my wife Dali directly at Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com. We can communicate that way, by phone, face to face, or whatever works best for you. -- DK
BLOWING BY 1,000 APPS
We set a goal to generate 1,000 new app installs by March 28, Major League Baseball's opening day, and we wound up with 1,357, including 44 on the day of the opener. Sometimes we set goals that are too high. This one, obviously, was too low. But that's OK, too.
Here's where to get your free app:
COLLEGE OFFER EXPIRING
Our friends at Rivals, the country's preeminent home for college sports coverage, reached out to extend an offer to all our current subscribers: Six free months to any site on their network. That's a $50 value, given that their annual subscriptions are $99.95. The offer expires April 1. So go now to their sign-up page and apply the following code: DKRivals6FREE
WE'RE LISTENING
• Our new top-of-the-homepage layout, now in place for a couple weeks, has met with ... strangely universal praise. And I say that because we hardly ever change something where everyone likes it. But the four-story display up there has been a real winner, both with the readers and with other data we've seen, as it's now easier to find the stories that matter most to you.
• Like what Hunter Homistek's doing with his daily Prowl feature? So do we, so it's been bumped near the top of the home page as part of the Coverage That Connects row. Get in there and participate. It's meant to be fun, and the more people, the more fun.
• Campus Chatter is in there, too, as well as all our menus. This is a pretty blah time of year for colleges, obviously, at least locally, but the forum door is wide open.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• New subscribers for 2019 are at 352. Our goal is 3,000. You can now track this figure daily at the bottom of the desktop and tablet versions of the site.
• Our daily active app users, averaged out over the past week, are at 12,865, broken down as 10,060 on Apple, 2,805 on Android. That total's minus-174 from the previous week. This figure will always fluctuate with the seasons and the news, so the goal is a steady, gradual increase, initially to 15,000, a number we've never achieved.
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past month, are at 80,648. That's minus-2,367 over the same rolling figure from a week ago. The goal with this figure is also about a steady, gradual increase, first to 100,000, a number we've achieved only during the two Stanley Cup runs.
• Our most-hit article of the past week -- exempting live files -- was Dale Lolley's NFL Draft outlook at 10,805. The Penguins accounted for 126,141 of our page views, the Pirates 100,667, the Steelers 97,615.
• We're at 31,176 (+133) page likes on Facebook, we're at 30,958 (+116) followers on Twitter, we're at 10,334 (+89) followers on Instagram, and we're at 796 (+19) followers on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• Get our free newsletter with a simple signup! We send out a new one Monday-Friday at 7 a.m.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• This is our new 2019 media kit. If you're interested in connecting with our large, passionate following, email my wife at Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email us: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
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