8 Big Promotions Wins in Big Markets

Best-of Ballot Program

WDIV-TV | Detroit, MI

WDIV-TV turned their single Best-Of ballot into an incredibly successful annual program of multiple ballot campaigns. They saw the success of their Best Of and launched pets, halloween, and Fan Frenzy ballots to highlight more niche topics and engage a larger portion of their community. This program has brought over $1,000,000 of revenue for the station!

Birthday Club Sweepstakes/Email

WGN-TV | Chicago, IL

WGN-TV runs a sponsored birthday club utilizing unique content from their on-air personalities. The emails include three unique components each month: a video featuring on-air talent, a birthday offer from advertisers, and an exclusive high-value giveaway. To grow this list they launched a year-long ‘join the club’ promotion to attract interested audience members to opt-in. Not only has the birthday club list grown to over 43,000 members but WGN drove over $50,000 in sponsorship revenue!

‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Poll

KOIT-FM | San Francisco, CA

When a debate over the popular Christmas song, ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ erupted, KOIT-FM engaged their listeners with a one-question poll. The poll asked their audience if the song should re-enter the stations’ rotation and the poll included an email opt-in for their various newsletters. This simple bit of interactive content brought in over 14,000 opt-ins for their various newsletters!

Best of Nashville Ballot

Nashville Scene Magazine | Nashville, TN

Nashville Scene’s Best of Nashville campaign saw a record number of votes, voters, and overall engagement in their most recent year of their ballot. The readers’ choice ballot collected over 333,000 votes and generated over $37,000 in advertiser revenue for the magazine.

Hot Spots Sweepstakes

HOT 96.9 | Boston, MA

HOT 96.9 runs this monthly vacation sweepstakes with sponsor Dunkin’ Donuts. Each month the station gives one lucky member of their audience a chance to get away for a weekend vacation. The sweepstakes drove an 80% opt-in rate for the station and app downloads for Dunkin’ Donuts. In the four years this promotion has been running it has brought in $400,000 for the station.

Incredible Kid of the Month Contest

St. Louis Magazine | St. Louis, MO

Each month, St. Louis Magazine asks readers to nominate the incredible kids in their community. Entrants share a photo and a brief description about what makes this child a standout in St. Louis. They secured the local children’s hospital to be the annual sponsor of the campaign – a perfect fit! The magazine brought in $37,500 over the 15-month campaign.

Chicago’s Merry Own Sweepstakes

WGN-TV | Chicago, IL

WGN invested in a large-scale holiday-themed sweepstakes with BIG prizes (tickets to Blue Man Group, the Chicago Blackhawks, and more) to grow their existing database and their new birthday club list. This range of valuable prizes allowed WGN to attract a large and diverse group of users. They received more than 33,000 entries from over 14,000 people and added over 20,000 opt-ins to their new birthday list.

Jax Best Ballot

WJXT-TV | Jacksonville, FL

WJXT-TV recently revamped their Jax Best ballot campaign with a new title sponsorship from Visit Jacksonville, the local tourism bureau. They run multiple niche ballots throughout the year such as best boutiques, best historical neighborhood, best bait shops, best haunted houses, and many more. They pre-seed the ballots to include all local businesses (non-franchise) in efforts to keep things local. The winners are brought onto WJXT’s on-air lifestyle show to highlight their business and are presented with their awards. The Jax Best campaign has already earned over $170,000 in revenue for WJXT-TV.

For more ideas for how to drive big engagement and revenue in your market, check out our downloadable playbook filled with over 500 promotion ideas to engage your audience!