3 Ways TV Can Avoid Losing Automotive Dollars During Elections

by Liz Huff Second Street

Sell a bundle of automotive-themed quizzes

Quizzes aren’t just for fun. They are an ideal way to build an email database and to generate hot, qualified leads through carefully crafted survey questions.

For example, a “What Kind of Driver Are You?” quiz earned its automotive sponsor 300 new email addresses, data for future marketing, and a car purchase the very next week!

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By optimizing your advertiser’s promotions package with a quiz bundle (a set of 3 – 5 automotive-themed quizzes), you can extend the shelf life of a campaign.

Need quiz ideas? Here are three ready-to-run turnkey quizzes to start your bundle:

  1. “What Kind of Car Should You Drive?”
  2. “Do You Know the Rules of the Road?”
  3. “How Much Do You Know About Car Maintenance?”

Top off your bundle with a few your own customized quizzes, such as a “Which Famous TV Car Would You Drive?” or even a “Where Should You Take Your Summer Road Trip?” quiz. Just think of the data these quizzes could provide for your advertiser.

Run a sweepstakes

Amidst the political noise, automotive advertisers can still grab a lot of attention by sponsoring a sweepstakes.

Your advertiser can easily incorporate their branding into a sweepstakes by giving away a test drive, a gas card, or tickets to local games and events.

Additionally, sweepstakes serve as one of the best ways to grow an email database and to reach the broadest possible audience. Because email is the #1 driver of digital conversions, email opt-ins serve as one of your key selling points.

Plus, sweepstakes are easy to set up, can be run multiple times without your audience tiring of them, and encourage social sharing.

Want to see this in action? Here’s a codeword sweepstakes for a dealership that took advantage of all the benefits sweepstakes have to offer. It earned WHAM-TV $12,500 and 72 hot leads for the auto dealer.

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Run a pro-football campaign

People are passionate about their favorite teams – that’s why KFMB-TV drove thousands of entries with a pro football contest sponsored by an auto dealership.

By sponsoring a pro football campaign – including a pick’em, a photo contest, a bracket, or other elements – your advertiser not only scores a season-long branding opportunity, but they can also collect valuable emails and consumer data for future marketing campaigns.

This pro football campaign from the Florida Times-Union combined a pick’em and a series of weekly quizzes to make over $50,000. They utilized local sports personalities from tv, radio, and newspaper as VIP Pickers driving tons of engagement and creating huge value for their variety of advertisers.

Take Action

At your next meeting, get your automotive advertisers excited about all their options during the election season.

Here are two steps you can take:

Step One: Use this sample calendar to keep your automotive dollars strong through election season:

Step Two: Download the Seller’s Guide which devotes an entire chapter to automotive advertisers.

From needs analysis questions, to survey questions, to email opt-ins, this guide lays out all the tools and knowledge you need to sell promotions.

Get your copy of the Seller's Guide to Promotions.