Hear From the Experts: Successful promotions that you can easily replicate in your market

2023 Chicago’s Merry Own

Diana Dionisio and the WGN-TV team were looking to take advantage of the holiday season and their core media to draw in sponsors and boost participation. They crafted a sweepstakes campaign sponsored by 5 different businesses each offering a large prize package for 5 winners. With the help of their multi-media sales package that included an identified paid segment hosted by their announcer who provided live promo reads, and curated, sponsor-specific invite emails, WGN-TV brought in $40,000 of revenue and over 4,000 new opt-ins between their own newsletter database and their sponsor opt-ins.

Toro Product of the Month

Sara Tieman and the team at WGN Radio were working with their current client, Toro, and were brainstorming how to secure a larger advertising buy from their client, while further fulfilling their client’s need of driving leads for their line of battery-powered tools. The WGN Radio team curated a year-long recurring campaign of one sweepstakes per month that featured and offered one Toro product as the prize. Along with the sweepstakes, WGN Radio offered zero party data collection, social media advertising, and promotion of the Toro products and sweepstakes on their niche radio show, HouseSmarts Radio with Lou Manfredini. The inclusion of this contesting package helped the WGN Radio team secure a full buy of $131,000 from Toro, which was a 75% spend increase from the previous year. The WGN team has also taken this same recurring campaign model and replicated it with other brands and other markets.

Clean Drains Quiz

Ryan Williams and the Federated – Fort Wayne team were looking to help their client, the Fort Wayne City Utilities, increase their database while educating their audience on pollution prevention. To achieve these goals, the Federated – Fort Wayne team created a quiz that provided pollution facts and tips on keeping the rivers clean that ran for 3 weeks. This quiz, that also promoted the Clean the Drains Day where volunteers would meet to help pick up trash along the roads, along with social media posts from the WQHK-FM morning show, email, and radio ads, lead to a marked increase in sign-ups for Clean the Drains day. The Federated – Fort Wayne team earned $7,500 in revenue, and have sold future promotions to Fort Wayne City Utilities because of the success their client saw with this promotion.

2023 Football Fans’ Choice

Bessie Bosco and the team at My Horry News wanted to capture the hype around high school football in their community and bring coaches, cheer/dance teams, athletic directors, mascots, etc. into the celebration as well. With that in mind, they created a ballot in which the community could nominate and vote for the best of all things high school football. This also gave local businesses an opportunity to both advertise and show their love for the community. The My Horry News team secured both a title sponsor and category sponsors for each of the categories. The ballot, along with print and digital ads, emails, and their celebratory event, allowed the My Horry News to honor their community and secure 1,300 opt-ins and over $13,000 in revenue.