Plus, find out how KUSI-TV drove morning show viewership with their code word Aloha Sweepstakes
Watch & win sweepstakes are always an incredibly effective way to drive viewership and online traffic for television stations, but they can be especially helpful during the ratings periods each year when viewers are at a premium.
With a watch & win sweepstakes, people need to watch your program in order to get the code word that will allow them to enter the contest. Since a new code word is typically announced every day, the more people watch your programming, the more chances they have to win.
KUSI-TV in San Diego, California ran a watch & win contest with a goal to increase the ratings of their morning show and newscasts. Their Aloha Sweepstakes was sponsored by Alaska Airlines and Hyatt Hotels in Hawaii, and 10 lucky winners received a 3-night stay at the deluxe Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa, air travel on Alaska Airlines, and surf lessons at the Ty Gurney Surf School. Each day, the station announced 4 different code words during their Good Morning San Diego show and their 6, 10, and 11PM newscasts.
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To enter the contest, people needed to put the code word into an online sweepstakes entry form on the station’s website.
The station promoted with :15 and :30 on-air spots, live in-news hourly plugs, Facebook posts, and tweets. The contest received tens of thousands of entries, the sponsors were thrilled with the exposure, and the station enjoyed great ratings during the promotion.
Choose Your Programming
When you are planning your watch & win, first figure out which programming you want to boost viewership for, and then design your contest around this programming. For example, if you want to drive viewers to your 10PM news, set up the contest so the code word is always announced during the late news. Just be sure not to announce it at the same time during the news every day, to ensure people will actually watch it and not just tune in for a few minutes to catch the code word.
Find a Sponsor
When you are looking for advertisers to sponsor your watch & win, target businesses who will be interested in ongoing promotion and want to be in front of the desirable demographic of your news audience (and whom your news audience will find compelling).
Offer a Great Prize
Since the barrier to entry for a watch & win contest is high, you need to offer a valuable prize, such as a weekend trip, a new home entertainment system or VIP event tickets. Your viewers will need to be invested in wanting to win in order to put in the effort to enter.
Make Codewords Relevant
When you are selecting your code words, consider making them relevant to your advertiser in order to give them a little extra promotion. You could also choose to make the code words relevant to the programming it appears in.
Promote Heavily
A watch & win contest is a big event that justifies a lot of promotion, especially since you will also be collecting lots of data and opt-ins from your audience. Create buzz by pre-promoting before the contest starts, and then continue to promote using all of the assets available to you, including online, on air, email, and social media. You can also engage your advertiser to promote the contest by having them send people to watch from their business or their Facebook page.
Watch & win sweepstakes not only drive viewership by incentivizing people to watch your programming, but also drive pageviews as people go to your website in order to actually enter the online contest. Plus, you can use these contests to collect opt-ins and grow your email list.
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Liz is the Senior Director of Customer Success and has an extensive background in media. She is a huge advocate of the power of promotions for every department within an organization, including sales, marketing, audience development, and editorial.