Best of Denton Drives Customers for Merchants, $50K for Newspaper

by Amanda Crocker Denton Record-Chronicle

Case Study Highlights

  • $50,000+ in revenue from ballot sponsorships and a print special section
  • Ads on the ballot led to new patients for local chiropractor and dentist
  • More than 140,000 votes cast

The Idea

The Denton Record-Chronicle, a part of A.H. Belo Corporation, is a 9,000 circulation newspaper located in Denton, Texas.

We wanted to continue the 21 year existence of the annual Best of Denton ballot by broadening its appeal and reach. The resulting print publication serves as a guide to readers’ favorite businesses, and the results are also posted online and distributed during the annual Arts & Jazz Festival, which attracts 100,000-plus visitors each year.

The Execution

We promoted the Best of Denton ballot with print house ads in newspaper, web ads on our website, Facebook ads, Facebook posts on our Page, and by encouraging employees to promote the ballot in emails to their contacts, regardless of what department they were in.

You can see an example post from our Facebook Page below:

Best-of-Denton-Facebook

We sold 10 main category sponsorships for the ballot, 57 sub-category sponsorships, 44 expanded listings, and 37 “Vote for Me” print ads. You can see one of the expanded listings below:

Best-of-Denton-Upgraded-Listing

The winners and top 2 runners-up were announced in the Best of Denton 2014 special section that ran on Friday, April 18th.

Best-of-Denton-Special-Section

The Results

The Best of Denton print publication generated more than $37,000 of revenue, in addition to $13,339 from the ballot sponsorships and expanded listings.

Two local businesses shared that their subcategory sponsorship led directly to new customers, making that purchase very well worth it! The Joint, a chiropractic clinic, and a dentist, Dr. Gary Taylor, both received new patients from the subcategory ad that they placed on the ballot.

Over a 30 day period, more than 7,400 unique users cast over 142,000 votes on the 120 categories we made available.

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