Publish Your Ballot Timeline
Ensure the start and end dates are clearly visible to keep your audience informed. If there is a separate nomination period, post the dates for both the nomination period and the voting period. Finally, say when the winners will be announced and when any related events or special sections will take place.
Have a Nomination Period, Then a Voting Period
Three phase ballots are the best way to maximize revenue, give voice to your audience, and make voting as easy as possible. A nomination period gives people the chance to pick their favorite businesses. This gives businesses an incentive to market themselves early on and gets your audience more involved. A separate voting period allows for a better user experience as well by providing an additional sales period to sell enhanced listings and ad space to nominated businesses.
Enhanced Listings
Make sure to leverage enhanced listings to ensure a more informative and pleasurable user experience. Through enhanced listings, voters can see specific info about businesses such as their website, address, and social info. In turn, people will spend more time browsing your ballot and interacting with advertisers.
Avoid Making Changes After the Ballot is Live
Once your ballot goes live, you should avoid making changes to entrants (such as adding or removing entrants and categories) if at all possible. Doing so is likely to lead to anger, confusion, and questions from customers. To avoid this, try running a three-phase ballot with a nomination, voting, and winner’s phase. This way there is plenty of time for your audience to write-in their favorites, and you can finalize entrants before voting begins.
Celebrate Your Winners
Make the end of your ballot an event to remember! Invite winners to a special party and post a special section on your website or in your publication. This way advertisers feel appreciated and are even more likely to participate again the next time you run a ballot.
Make the Winner’s Page a Year-Round Resource
Having a winner’s directory is valuable because people can go back and consult it throughout the year. This can be a resource for anyone visiting your town or city. Include information for winners like a map, logo, description, and website to make the page even more useful.
By following these simple tips, you will be able to maximize satisfaction with both consumers and advertisers, meaning an organized and sustainable ballot process. For more tips and best practices surrounding ballots, take a look at the comprehensive ballot playbook.
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Matt is a Customer Success Manger at Second Street. He works with our partners to help them succeed with engagement campaigns, and is also our in-house expert on running successful ballot programs.