We are proud to work with media companies around the country from markets big and small and those in between.
Our partners are using the Second Street platform to run promotions and engagement campaigns that generate digital revenue, grow their email and social databases and capture valuable consumer data and insights through our suite of products.
Hopefully, you’re familiar with the Lab, but if not, this is your hub for all things related to promotions and engagement campaigns. We have case studies, downloadable calendars and worksheets, stories from our partners and industry insights. I hope you will check it out!
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Let’s start off with some advertising categories that you’re going to want to be targeting leading up to the fall, so you can be selling them into the opportunities we’ll be sharing later.
Here are some top categories for the fall. Certainly some seasonality to this list, but many of these are also ripe categories for year-around promotions. Promotions and Engagement Campaigns provide great opportunities for just about any business.
to capture consumer data and insights, grow their own email databases and generate leads!
To help you uncover ideas and opportunities, we have the Seller’s Guide to Promotions that includes all of these categories. Be sure to download that at….
For each category, we provide you with needs analysis questions, promotion ideas, prize ideas and even recommended survey questions!
Let’s start off with some advertising categories that you’re going to want to be targeting leading up to the fall, so you can be selling them into the opportunities we’ll be sharing later.
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
Quiz was included to enhance the buy
This one of several quizzes the sponsor – a grocery store – has been involved in throughout the year. They do different bundles depending on the holiday. For the end of the year holidays they sponsored a quiz bundle that include this Name the Holiday Movie Based on the Food quiz, Which christmas movie family is most like yours and What holiday treat are you? .
One the great things that they do to really amplify the campaign for the advertiser is to put the quiz on a page on where all of the ad spots feature the sponsor. These ad spots are getting HUGE click through rates – exponentially higher than any they see throughout their site. That gives them a truly custom branding solution with tons of links to featured foods and specials on their website.
And as you can see these are getting tons of engagement from readers!
To help you get started with your own quiz bundle, here are a couple of ideas from our Turkey Quiz Library – which is over 225 now!
We have several more specifically around the winter holidays, so check out this page and find the combination that works for your and your advertiser!
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
Landing page
Individual sweeps each day
Advertiser’s sweepstakes included an opt-in and survey questions custom to that sponsor
The variety of sponsors was impressive – hotel, golf course, flower shop, a couple of restaurants, a spa and a home improvement retailer to name a few – so something for everyone on your list!
They each gave away a prize with a minimum value of $100, so this helped drive a lot of users to enter, which made the data from the survey question really valuable for the sponsors!
Best Practice: I would schedule these to maximize the number of weekdays and even consider only running them on the week days.
Same format here but this example comes from a TV station in Medford, OR
they found 12 sponsors to participate at $850 each, plus two $50 prizes. Each sponsor was featured for one day of the contest where they received exclusive on-air spots, social media mentions, and more. Users were entered to win a daily prize or the 13th day grand prize including a prize from each sponsor.
While December is heaving on holiday-related promotions, we also start to see a lot of “guess the snowfall” type contests as well.
Those are best done as a Codeword sweepstakes as our partner KTUU has done.
This contest is in its fourth year.
Great sponsor tie-in – thinking about snowfall, you better consider the condition of your tires!
Same sponsor keeps renewing!
Number of entries has nearly tripled since they started
We know that the holidays are about family and making warm holiday memories, but in the world of promotions, its about making kids cry…Liz I know nothing gives you the holiday spriit like a kid sitting on santa’s lap while screaming for their parents, right? Well, we’ve some great photo contests that will fit the bill for you.
“Scared of santa contests” are a perennial favorite. Kids photo contests are so flexible and can be themed around holidays, seasons and events throughout the year.
Sponsor – Cable and Internet provider
how it was promoted – We promoted by handing out over 2,000 flyers at on the street events, we had a ton of on air mentions, web presence, and social media posts on facebook and twitter
any other results? – It was very well received we got a lot of comments and buzz on social media about it
Sponsor – Drug store
Sponsor – gift store; holidays
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
Sponsor
Bakery that runs sweepstakes quarterly on Facebook to promote different seasonal offerings
This is a regular campaign for them and something they’ve done for several years now
What really keeps them coming back is the impactful data they can collect
They always put survey questions on their forms
In this case they asked questions intended to inform the entrant on products they offered and how they could order them – 1700 entries
40% unaware of that specific product
40% unaware of satellite locations during holidays
They also learned that the vast majority of their customers were not ordering online, so that’s something they can use in future marketing to educate the market
A good survey question to always consider is “Have you shopped at our business before?” Advertiser love to hear that they’re reaching new potential customers!
Tweet your outcomes and we’ll send you a hat
I personally am Christmas Vacation, which is totally spot on!
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
Here’s a great kids photo contest. These are a perennial hit. Photo contest drive high engagement including social sharing. Add kids to the mix and then you’ve got parents and grandparents and family also sharing and voting. That’s where these really take off.
This example comes from Roanoke Times and feature two sponsors – kids consigment stores. What a perfect match for this contest theme!
Prize - $500 gift cards
Run this leading up to Thanksgiving
Grocery, Bakery, Restaurants
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
Sponsor
Baptist Health, a regional hospital and healthcare provider
Sponsor goals
Inform and educate public on breast cancer during the month of October through an informative trivia quiz
Help the hospital participate and earn votes in a national competition for raising awareness for breast cancer
Solution – two quizzes
Test your breast cancer knowledge
What type of pink glove dancer are you?
Sponsor
Baptist Health, a regional hospital and healthcare provider
Sponsor goals
Inform and educate public on breast cancer during the month of October through an informative trivia quiz
Help the hospital participate and earn votes in a national competition for raising awareness for breast cancer
Solution – two quizzes
Test your breast cancer knowledge
What type of pink glove dancer are you?
November is all about food, family, friends and being thankful.
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
Incorporated advertiser into the questions and put offers on outcome page
They had several advertisers interested in participating and these are perfect sponsor ideas for you to think about: edible arrangements, high-end restaurant, message and spa, and specialty store
The revenue they generated is a testament to
Outcomes linked to jewelry suggestions based on the outcome – great way to drive additional traffic to the advertiser website
Sponsor: Jewelry store
Incorporated advertiser into the questions and put offers on outcome page
Here’s a great kids photo contest. These are a perennial hit. Photo contest drive high engagement including social sharing. Add kids to the mix and then you’ve got parents and grandparents and family also sharing and voting. That’s where these really take off.
This example comes from Roanoke Times and feature two sponsors – kids consigment stores. What a perfect match for this contest theme!
Prize - $500 gift cards
Sponsor: The Westfield Mall
Prizes: From stores at the mall – spa, jewelry, restaurant and a salon
Featured advertiser in print, online, on social – it also ran on the advertiser’s Facebook page!
This sponsorship was the first money they’d spent with the newspaper in 3 years, and the response was amazing!
70K votes
1400 opt-ins
Bottom Line: a great prize drove engagement!
Sponsor: Multiple – restaurant, limo service auto dealer and resort
Prizes: Great prize bundle – dinner, limo and an overnight stay at the resort (I want to win that)
In their promotion, they created two tiers, so that multiple advertiser could participate at different spending levels. The title sponsor got much more exposure and branding to accompany the
As a reminder, photo contests can have a great impact not only in terms of direct revenue, but you also get the benefit of increased page views, new people on the site voting and overall engagement, which can benefit your programmatic ad buys.
Submissions: 137
Votes: 25,000 (in just nine days)
We also want to highlight one of our advertiser categories for October - Healthcare
Sponsor: Day Spa
They had some great survey questions!
Choose the treatments that most appeal to you
What is your age group
Have you ever visit this spa before
Over half had never been to the spa!
Let’s start off with some advertising categories that you’re going to want to be targeting leading up to the fall, so you can be selling them into the opportunities we’ll be sharing later.
$31,500
$98,500
Let’s start off with some advertising categories that you’re going to want to be targeting leading up to the fall, so you can be selling them into the opportunities we’ll be sharing later.
We mentioned this earlier but as a reminder we have over 30 top advertising categories that you can review. They can be downloaded in one file or you can pick and choose. Check it out at….
One of our most popular downloads is the promotions calendar. We’ve overhauled and streamlined to include not only a way to plan your promotions but to track them.
We have a tab for sponsored promotions. Those are like your Mother’s Day or Halloween promotions.
We’ve also include an area to track those advertiser promotions that you create around a specific advertiser.
Finally, here’s a URL that you definitely want to bookmark. Here’s our entire list of TURNKEY QUIZZES that you can review and share as mock-ups with advertisers. Once you find one you like, then it is just a matter of logging into the tool and adding it to your account. We’ve done all of the heavy lifting for you. I hope you will run these throughout the year. They literally take minutes to publish.
Let’s start off with some advertising categories that you’re going to want to be targeting leading up to the fall, so you can be selling them into the opportunities we’ll be sharing later.
September is just two months away; all of these opportunities are within your reach but don’t put them off to the last-minute
We’ve given you a ton of ideas and categories to prioritize; use the seller’s guide to hone in on specific categories and generate incremental revenue with promotions
Lots of opportunities for fall; create a bundle that brings multiple promotions together to give your sponsors a great campaign