Case Study Highlights
- $74,000 in revenue for station
- 26 local sponsors
- 3,000+ opt-ins for station
- 1,800+ opt-ins for title sponsors
2018 Second Street Award – Best Sponsored Campaign Winner
The Idea
WLEX is a DMA 64 television station out of Lexington, Kentucky. Our annual Shop Local sweepstakes is our favorite way to highlight local businesses and encourage our audience to shop local during the holiday season. In our fourth year of the contest, we wanted to make it even better for us, our advertisers, and our viewers.
The Execution
A great sweepstakes needs a great prize. For the Shop Local sweepstakes, one grand prize winner receives a prize bundle valued over $1,400 with gifts from all of our sponsors. With prizes from a variety of local businesses, this prize be valuable to all of our audience.
This year we changed our sponsorship strategy to two sponsorship levels with the goal of increasing revenue. We secured a home and office technology store and a local mall as our presenting sponsors. Additionally, we locked in 24 holiday package sponsors including a hardware store, a jewelry store, and a medical spa.
Both sponsorship tiers had a robust sponsorship package. We focused on leveraging online and on-air assets to drive exposure for the advertisers. In addition, we included email opt-ins for our title sponsors as well as our own newsletter lists.
Our Presenting Sponsor Package requires a $6,000 investment and prize donation (minimum $100) and includes:
- 112x :15-second promotion commercials on LEX18 and MeTV
- Logo on all broadcast promotional commercials
- 100,000 banner ad impressions on LEX18.com linking to website or Facebook
- 50,000 display ads on LEX18 News App linking to website or Facebook page
- 50,000 display ads on LEX18 Weather App linking to your website or Facebook page
- Coupon on entry received bounce back email (300×250 ad size)
- Prominent logo placement on promotional email blasts (11/26, 11/29 & 12/5)
- Logo on promotional Mobile Takeover (12/3) and Super Billboard (11/26) promoting the contest
- Appearance or feature on LEX18 “Live With Lee and Hayley” or “Live with Lee” @ 4pm
The Holiday Package Sponsorship requires a $2,600 investment and prize donation (minimum $50), and includes:
- 44x :15-second commercials on LEX18 and MeTV
- 150,000 ROS banner ad impressions on LEX18.com linking to website or Facebook
- (1) News App Interstitial
- 50,000 display ads on LEX18 news app linking to your website or Facebook
- Logo on promotional email blasts three promotional invite emails
- Appearance or feature on LEX18 “Live With Lee and Hayley” or “Live with Lee” @ 4pm
After entering the sweepstakes, users receive a thank-you offer including a coupon from our two title sponsors. This was an excellent way to drive foot traffic and extra sales during this big sales season.
The Results
This years’ sweepstakes brought in over 4,000 entries, making it our biggest Shop Local campaign ever! We earned a combined total of $74,000 for the station and generated an average of 3,000 opt-ins for our various newsletters.
The best part of the campaign was the success we drove for our advertising sponsors. We leveraged online and on-air promotions to drive brand awareness and foot traffic. And, to top it off, our two presenting sponsors each collected about 1,800 opt-ins for their email list!
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Sherry Hayes is the Director of Digital Sales at WLEX18-TV in Lexington, KY. Sherry is dedicated to helping WLEX and their sponsors find big success and measurable results from promotions.