Key Takeaways
Trivia Quizzes
Trivia quizzes are a great place to start using promotions to enhance your content. This type of quiz tests users’ knowledge of a subject and is a natural fit to engage, educate, and entertain your audience. Consider a weekly news quiz to test users on the big events of the week or using a quiz as a creative way to educate them on a particularly important topic.
Personality Quizzes
Personality quizzes are another fun, engaging way to serve your audience. These quizzes have no right or wrong answers, but instead give you a personality outcome at the end of the quiz. We’ve seen a lot of success when you incorporate your talent and staff in a quiz like “Which Morning Show Host are You?”
Polls
Polls are a perfect way to engage your audience with your content, especially during times of high website traffic. Embed a poll into a story, in an ad position, or in your emails to get answers from your audience. Consider using polls to collect the opinions and stance of your audience and then repurpose the results into content for your site, your paper, or an on-air segment. Polls around national and local elections can produce particularly powerful content.
Surveys
Surveys collect valuable information from your audience. These are created to be more in-depth than polls and can inform coverage as well as your audience engagement strategy. When people feel their opinions are valued, the more likely they are to keep coming back. A simple listening preferences survey can uncover meaningful data to inform your actions.
Ballots
Ballot campaigns are a fantastic way to drive time on site. These mass-appeal promotions generate tons of email database growth. Consider using your existing content to create a Top Stories of the year ballot or a celebrating people in your community with Hometown Heroes or Salute to Nurses ballots.
Brackets
Fan-vote brackets are an opportunity to get your audiences’ opinion on a fun topic while driving great website traffic. Think of the debates you’d have in a bar – greatest 80s rock band, tastiest local donut shop, or funniest buddy comedy. These brackets drive users to come back to your site each round to vote for their favorites.
Photo Galleries
Especially right now, photo galleries are a big hit with local communities. We’ve seen tons of local media companies use these to highlight those students missing out on end of the year celebrations, engage children at home with coloring contests, and celebrate essential workers. Plus, these create great additional content for your core media,
Invitation & Thank You Emails
Your promotions are only effective if people know about them. Email is the best way to get the word out about your promotions and drive people to participate. But you also want to be sure to leverage email to thank your users for participating. These thank-you emails are also a great opportunity to drive people to their next digital action you want them to take – see the winners, check out your coverage, or enter our next promotion.
Drip Campaigns
After the campaign ends for the person who enters, it’s time to think about drip campaigns – a series of emails based on a specific trigger. Drip campaigns like a Welcome Series after getting a new email opt-in will keep your new subscriber focused on your brand and lead them to actions you want them to take.
More Resources
If you’re running short on time, leverage our Turnkey Library. Here you’ll find over 600 ready-to-run or ready-to-customize promotions you can get started with today. These turnkey promotions are perfect for introducing your team to promotions and kickoff your interactive content strategy.
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Tim is the Director of Email Success at Second Street and has extensive background in media. Tim is dedicated to helping local media companies find success through their email programs while leveraging promotions to grow their database and achieve their company's goals.