Key Takeaways
Audit Your Ballot
We suggest your Best Of should have 8 groups and about 150 categories. Consider which categories drive the most engagement, the most revenue, or offer potential revenue opportunities. Try removing categories from your Best Of that would make a great standalone niche ballot later in the year like Family Favorites, Weddings, Professional/Employers.
Create a Hit List
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: restaurants. They have never spent the same as other categories, and your Best Of’s revenue success was never reliant on them. Target the top 20 business categories that show up in more than three categories, are incredibly competitive, and historically buy packages – healthcare, home services, legal, insurance, and real estate.
Have an Inbound Marketing Strategy
Start by creating a landing page to drive lead-gen for your sales teams. This page should include important information, tips, and tools businesses can use to solicit votes from their patrons. If you’re making social media graphics or other collateral businesses can use, put that behind a survey form set up with a Notify and Share opt-in to deliver hot leads.
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Julie is the Senior Customer Success Manager at Second Street and a former client in local media. Her best advice for driving the most success with your revenue and audience engagement strategy is to include promotions in every business initiative.