Next-Gen Best Of Ideas: Scalable Revenue Programs You Can Implement Now

Revenue Upgrade #1: Self-Service eCommerce

Vince Johnson. the Group Publisher at Osteen Publishing Co. outlined the exact problem many publishers face.

Each of their Best Of programs includes:

• 400+ categories
• 6,000 nominated businesses
• 2,000 finalists

There’s just one problem – they only have 2 sales reps. No matter how hard their sales reps work, there is just no way for them to reach 6,000+ businesses individually.

This is exactly why Vince decided to introduce Self-Service eCommerce to his Best Of programs. They included:

• A la carte ad purchases
• Two-tiered featured entrant upgrade options
• Custom packages bundling ad spaces and other advertising opportunities

While his sales team was initially wary, Vince ensured success by:

• Training his reps on this new opportunity
• Assigning commission for eCommerce purchases, so there would be no lost sales credit

The Results

The results were a resounding success. Vince noticed that they were reaching businesses they’d never sold to before with 61% of eCommerce sales were to NEW customers. He also saw that the eCommerce option just made it easier for some businesses to interact with, as he saw sales coming in at 11pm at night!

Overall, eCommerce drove $50,000 of NEW revenue in the first ballot they launched it within. They are now making plans to include eCommerce in all upcoming ballots, and even expanding the purchasing opportunities they offer!

Revenue Upgrade #2: Text-to-Vote

Reilly Kneedler, a Digital Consultant who helped Wick Communications with their Best Of program, shared yet another new Best Of engagement and revenue upgrade: Text-to-Vote.

The idea was simple – assign a keyword to an entrant allowing users to text that keyword to submit a vote. They still ran their online ballot, but implemented text-to-vote as a way to increase engagement and provide multiple ways for users to participate.

They decided to include text-to-vote options within their custom packages and also as $250 add ons per keyword. Same as with Vince, the results were clear – text-to-vote was a huge revenue and engagement engine.

The Results

Within one Best Of, they were able to grow their revenue by 20% year over year with text-to-vote. They also saw that 17% of total votes came from text-to-vote and their total votes increased 25% year over year.

The Bottom Line

Both Vince and Reilly proved that just a small change to your Best Of program – like offering eCommerce purchases or a new way to submit votes like text-to-vote – made a huge impact.

In both scenarios, engagement – whether it was more votes or more sales from dormant business contact – and revenue increased significantly. Take what they’ve learned and apply these proven revenue engines to your Best Of program—now!