Directory Helps Local Businesses Reach Underserved Gay Market Advertising Directed At Gays Is Growing Nationwide
Two gay Spokane men were remodeling their home three years ago and needed a plumber.
They wanted a gay plumber, but had no way of finding one.
Their search gave birth to a directory of gay and gay-friendly businesses in this region that is now in its third year of publication.
“It makes sense. There’s a good market, why not tap into it?” said Cary Snyder, president of the Inland Northwest Business Alliance, which was created to publish the directory.
“Gay couples are more comfortable going to someone who they don’t have to explain their relationship to,” Snyder said.
The business alliance began with 35 members and now has 51 advertising in the directory. Though the growth is not phenomenal, members say the marketing effort is boosting business while serving a group whose needs are not being met.
Some of the business people who advertise are gay. Others, like Crystal Peets, just want to let people know they don’t discriminate.
Peets, a salesperson for Empire Ford in downtown Spokane, sold a truck to two gay men earlier this year. Pleased with the service, the two men referred another customer to Peets. Three months later, Peets took out her first ad in the Stonewall News, Spokane’s gay monthly newspaper. That brought her a third sale. Now she’s a member of the business alliance and advertises in the directory.
“I think there’s a really big market in Spokane for the gay community,” she said.
Though some of the other salespeople teased Peets about the ads, she said she’s tapping an underserved market and helping ensure customers are treated fairly.
Nationwide, advertising directed at the gay market is growing. In 1996, $73.7 million was spent on advertising in gay publications, up from $61 million in 1995, according to the Third Annual Gay Press Report, done by Mulryan/ Nash, a New York City-based ad agency specializing in reaching gay consumers.
Some 1,000 copies of Spokane’s 53-page, multicolor business directory will be distributed in the next two weeks to Auntie’s Bookstore, Hastings Books Music and Video stores, gay bars and nightclubs, the Rainbow Coalition Community Center in downtown Spokane and two churches.
The directory includes lawyers, bankers, accountants, Realtors, nightclubs, counselors, financial consultants and even a gas station.
“We’re in the counseling profession and it’s useful to give to clients who are coming out,” said Charles Smaltz of Transformation Associates, 104 S. Freya. “It gives them a resource for businesses that they can go to that are going to be at least accepting, if not supportive.”
Because membership in the directory has not grown as quickly as expected, the business alliance has taken a different marketing tack this year. After the initial distribution, additional members will be able to join until October. A second printing of another 1,000 copies will be produced to add new members.
“We’re still looking for a plumber,” Snyder said with a laugh.
Publishing the directory hasn’t been trouble-free. When the business alliance did its first mailing, seeking interest in the directory, some people sent back response cards with anonymous, crude comments.
“We got a few ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ kind of comments. We wish they’d tell us who they are so we can take them off the list,” Snyder said. “We just toss them in the trash and go on.”
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