Viewers’ Choice Ballot Earns Station $157K

The Execution

Our Viewers’ Choice campaign begins in February. To maximize the revenue and engagement opportunities of the campaign, we split the ballot into three phases: nomination, voting, and winners.

To promote engagement in each phase of the campaign, we send emails to our segmented list of previous Viewers’ Choice users encouraging them to nominate and vote. We also display banner ads on our websites and run several promotional ads on-air. We recently began including a sweepstakes for voters to incentivize participation. Our station purchases ten $50 gas gift cards to give away to ten random voters.

As our campaign has grown over the years, so has our list of categories. Ten years into developing this campaign, we’re now up to 40 categories! We look to other top ballots from other areas as well as our local competition for ideas and inspiration. With more categories come more opportunities for sponsorship. This means more opportunities for revenue.

We provide sponsorship opportunities to the top-nominated businesses in each category. For a three-month investment of almost $3,000, businesses receive a package including:

• a plaque recognizing accomplishment as a Viewers’ Choice winner
• mention in the rotation of special on-air promos recognizing our Viewers’ Choice winners (five companies per promo, including audio/video ID on all four of our TV stations from June – August.)
• 5,000 impressions each month, June – August, on WEEK.com and HOIABC.com for any use you would like to promote. Whether it’s for branding or a particular product or service, we will promote it on WEEK.com and HOIABC.com.
• 5Viewer’s choice page on WEEK.com and HOIBC.com with logo and link to advertiser website for being a winner/finalist in their category.

This robust three-month campaign gives businesses a taste of the benefits of advertising with WEEK-TV and often leads to them becoming a client beyond the ballot.

The Results

We wrapped our most recent Viewers’ Choice campaign with more than 20,000 votes. We brought in more than $157,000 in revenue, over $50,000 of which was from new business to the station! Their participation in the ballot has now led to several new clients advertising with us consistently.

In just five years, we’ve increased our ballot campaign revenue by 60%! Our sales team has found our ballot sponsorship package is a great way to find new advertisers for the station. We look forward to growing our ballot and our revenue next year.