What promotion type will help you reach your goal?

Matt Coen

Selecting a promotion type is all about making a match between your goals and the promotion type that will best serve those goals.

If you're like most media companies, you are probably hoping to achieve some of the following goals with your promotions:

• Grow your email database.
• Generate revenue.
• Grow your social media presence.
• Engage your audience.
• Increase your site traffic.

Promotions can certainly help you (and your advertisers) achieve all of these goals, and once you know what you are trying to achieve and how you can measure success, you can select the right type of promotion to get there. You can even combine several promotions in one campaign to reach multiple goals at once!

Remember, all of the promotions described below have the power to grow your database if you include an email opt-in on the entry form or registration page. You could even add opt-ins for multiple lists, such as your general promotional email list, your deals email lists, or even your news and weather alerts!

Here's a look at each type of promotion and which goals they can help you achieve:

SWEEPSTAKES

Since sweepstakes have a very low barrier to entry, they're perfect for quickly growing your email database (and your social media following if you add the sweepstakes to your Facebook page). Sweepstakes are also a great way to keep your audience happy, and if you allow multiple entries they can help increase your site traffic. While any time is the right time to run a sweepstakes, they are particularly useful in advance of a more major promotion to help build up your promotional database.

SUBMISSION CONTESTS

Photo, video, MP3 and essay contests are very engaging, drive lots of site traffic when people return to vote, and encourage social sharing. These contests also are great for generating sponsorship revenue because they are often targeted to a specific demographic. Depending on how many advertisers you want to work with, you can build a variety of different sponsorship packages.

PICK'EMS & BRACKETS

Sports contests present a major opportunity for sponsorship revenue and audience engagement as people come back week after week to make their picks. These promotions also work very well in tandem with other promotions – like submission contests, sweepstakes, or custom brackets – that are set up to reach a more targeted audience.

METRO BALLOTS

These ballots are HUGE promotions that generate tons of site traffic, audience engagement and sponsorship revenue opportunity (not to mention additional revenue from expanded listings and category sponsorships). They tie in well with print special sections, events and online content, and are very helpful for cultivating relationships with a wide variety of advertisers in your market.

NICHE BALLOTS

Metro ballots are huge promotional events and bring in lots of revenue – but they only take place once a year. In the months in between your major ballot, there are plenty of opportunities to run smaller, more targeted niche ballots. These are a great way to keep your audience engaged year-round, and can even serve as a stepping stone to a larger metro promotion if you haven't run one before. Furthermore, since they put you in touch with smaller advertisers than most contests, niche ballots are the perfect way to generate incremental revenue from small- and mid-sized local businesses.

CARDS

As ecommerce promotions, cards have the potential to generate significant revenue. They also reach a highly targeted niche audience, as the most popular advertisers for cards are golf courses and spas. This is especially useful, because neither of these advertisers typically do a lot of traditional media advertising.

Of course, the best strategy is to run a variety of different types of promotions throughout the year. To get started planning your own diverse promotions calendar for the whole year, download the Promotions Calendar Template now.

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.