Case Study Highlights
- More than $18,000 in revenue
- Over 70,000 votes cast
- Streamlined nomination process and online voting
The Idea
The Pantagraph, a part of Lee Enterprises, is a 40,000 circulation newspaper located in Bloomington, Illinois.
We had run a Readers’ Choice ballot in print for years, but due to the amount of work it entailed, we decided to do away with it in 2008. Five years later, we brought it back, this time online. Now that new online tools were available, we could streamline the process of collecting nominations and make voting easier. Our goal for our new-and-improved ballot was to grow our email opt-ins and drive at least $15,000 in new revenue.
The Execution
We promoted our 2014 Readers’ Choice ballot in print and online with banner ads, sliding billboards, mobile ads, and social media. You can see one of our promotional Facebook posts below.
On the ballot itself, we sold ad space to the advertisers who placed in the top 3 in their respective categories. We also sold 45 winning advertisers into the special section, which also included an online ad buy.
The Results
We generated $18,010 in revenue with this promotion, and 70,545 votes were cast by nearly 4,100 registered users.
Advertisers loved the program! We had tremendous feedback from advertisers (just take a look at the photo below to see what we mean!) as well as the public, and we plan to continue this promotion for many years to come.
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Michelle is the Advertising Director at The Pantagraph in Bloomington, IL. Through her 10+ years of experience in this role, she has grown their digital revenue by leaps and bounds.