Stories come and go in the news business, but Realtor Marie Ippolito has been a constant within the pages of Geist Community Newsletter since its inception.
Ippolito bought an advertisement in the newsletter’s first issue 10 years ago, and it has been running ever since. She listed several reasons for the long-standing relationship, saying local news is important and she was confident publisher Tom Britt would produce a quality newsletter.
“When I got an email from Tom saying what he wanted to do, I called him right away and told him I’d be with him from the very first newsletter,” she said. “I knew the value of something like this — he was focusing on the area where I lived and it just seemed like a perfect match.”
A broker and vice president for the F.C. Tucker Co., Ippolito has lived in the area for roughly 25 years — long enough to remember when the community was without a dedicated source for local news. She credited the newsletter for filling a key niche: providing a close-up look at what’s happening in the community, covering everything from new businesses to student accomplishments in the schools.
“Tom has done a wonderful job branding the newsletter and keeping the quality high,” she said. “I enjoy reading it when I get it, because it has interesting stories.”
From a marketing standpoint, Ippolito said her consistent presence in the newsletter helps with name recognition, saying that can be important in a marketplace where the average person relocates only once every seven or eight years.
“This is my philosophy on advertising: Advertising is like planting seeds in a garden. Sometimes they will grow and germinate immediately. Other times it may take a few years for the seeds to germinate, and sometimes they don’t at all,” she said. “All of the marketing research I’ve seen says that you need to have some consistency.”
