BusinessDesk.com West Midlands breaks monthly target four days after launch

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New regional business news website TheBusinessDesk.com West Midlands exceeded its first month's target for registrations to the site within four days of launching. The site, which went live on Monday , has already received more than 1,500 registrations breaking the target of 1,000 for its first month of launch, editor Marc Reeves (pictured, right) told Journalism.co.uk.

The West Midlands site went live on Monday, naming former Birmingham Post editor Reeves as its head. The launch boosts the BusinessDesk.com's portfolio to three regional news sites, following the launch of its original Yorkshire site in November 2007 and sister site for the north west in September 2008 .

"Because we have the Yorkshire site and the north west site already, we have got quite a network in place and each time we launch a new site we will seek to use this. There's a close business community in the West Midlands and we need to make sure that we are in the right networks and I have that," said Reeves.

"Our core audience isn't people like you and me, it's people in the West Midlands who want to know what's going on in business on a daily basis."

In launching and promoting the site, Reeves said his team is using new media tools in an old-fashioned way, for example sending out news of the launch to the existing 30,000 registrants on other BusinessDesk sites and buying in mailing lists.

Registration to the site gives readers access to full articles on the site, which are otherwise only available as excerpts, and the option to subscribe to a daily or weekly email newsletter.

Reaching the monthly target so soon after launch doesn't mean a break for the team, said Reeves: "We've got to be careful not to get too excited. We need to think about what the figures will be like in week 17 after launch when it's business as usual."

But it is a step towards the site's future targets: it wants 5,000 registrations by the end of six months, 10,000 in the first year and 20,000 in two years.

The site has also secured three advertising deals, despite having had a relatively short and quiet pre-launch publicity period of a week-and-a-half, said Reeves.

While the West Midlands edition currently follows the template of the BusinessDesk.com's other sites, Reeves said his currently three-strong team will look at what's different about the West Midlands' business community and what the site can provide specifically for its area.