3 strategic promotions goals to plan for a successful 2016

It's hard to believe it, but it's already time to start planning for 2016. If you want to reach your revenue and database growth goals, you need to plan out your promotions strategy in advance (we recommend at least three months in advance). Fortunately, building an integrated promotions calendar that incorporates contests, ballots, quizzes and ecommerce doesn't have to be a complicated process.

Before we walk through the three different areas of promotions, I wanted to share something that Beth Mann, president of WKDZ-FM and WHVO-FM, spoke about at the 2015 Promotions Summit. You need goals that are going to be meaningful to your bottom line and be a significant part of your digital budget.
 

3 STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTIONS

In promotions, there are three different areas of growth that you can invest your resources in – email database, sponsored promotions revenue and advertiser promotions revenue. You can choose to focus on one or two of these areas, or all three. Each requires its own goal setting and its own plan. We'd recommend that you focus on all three areas because they are highly complementary to each other and can be more powerful together than alone. If you're starting from scratch, begin with the email database goal, then layer in sponsored and advertiser promotions revenue goals. Whichever combination you go with, start small and build up. Consider your resources and goals before picking your approach.

1. Email Database Growth: Not a single other promotional asset boasts as high of conversion rates as email does. As a media company, email is something that you own. Plus, it's the workhorse of promotions. The chart below shows how contest entries spike significantly the day a promotional email was sent.
 

2. Sponsored Revenue Growth: As a media company, sponsored promotions that run on your website can deliver significant, ongoing revenue for you. Leverage every promotional vehicle you have to get exposure – email, social, traditional media, and more, to give your sponsor ample opportunity to be associated with your brand.

3. Advertiser Promotions Revenue: Adopting an advertiser promotions strategy can create an additional, incremental revenue stream for your business. These are promotions that you run on behalf of the advertiser and are designed to meet a specific business objective for the advertiser. These can be custom quizzes or sweepstakes and run on the advertiser's website or Facebook Page. By setting an annual goal and a price point, you can determine how many promotions you need to run a month to reach that goal. Just two of these a month can drive significant revenue for the year.

4 STEPS TO GET STARTED

1. Identify Your Top Priorities: Be realistic. You can't (successfully) execute every single promotion out there. Recognize what will work well for your market and the advertisers that you want to do business with next year. Focus on doing what makes sense in your market really, really well.

2. Create a Promotions Team: Rallying a champion from every department – sales, marketing, admin, web/IT – will really set up your program for success. When people are invited to be involved, they are committed. They'll start taking ownership of this program and get excited about the results you're getting. Leverage a shared calendar to keep everyone on the same page.

3. Create Time-Bound & Measurable Goals: When you set your goals, be sure to make them realistic, time-bound and measurable. You need goals you can clearly work towards.

4. Track Results & Adjust As Needed: Each month, take a fresh look at what you've done. See if you are on track for your goals and adjust your approach as needed to help reach your goals.

Matt Coen is the president and co-founder of Second Street, a leading provider of private-label online promotions platforms and partner success services for media companies based in St. Louis, Mo. He can be reached at (314) 880-4902 or matt@secondstreet.com.