News / Business
Choosing the Right Promotion to Meet Your Goals: Shweiki Media Printing Company Presents Businesses With Must-Know Tips for Picking the Right Type of Promotion
With many different types of promotions out there, it can be difficult for businesses to properly decide on the right one to help them achieve their most important goals. Here Shweiki Media teams up with Matt Coen of Second Street Promotions Lab to present businesses with must-know strategies for determining the perfect type of promotion for them.
There are so many different types of promotions that sometimes it can seem difficult for publishers to choose the right one to meet their goals. Therefore, the best reason to start is by identifying one’s goals and then selecting the promotion type that will best serve them.
Here Shweiki Media Printing Company teams up with Matt Coen of Second Street Promotions Lab to present publishers with tips for determining the correct type of promotions to meet their goals.
Most media companies are probably hoping to achieve some of the following goals with their promotions:
Generating revenue
Growing social media presence
Engaging the audience
Increasing site traffic
Promotions can certainly help publishers (and their advertisers) achieve all of these goals—it’s just a matter of determining the right type of promotion to get there. One can even combine several promotions in one campaign to reach multiple goals at once!
One thing that’s important to remember is that all of the promotions described below have the power to grow a database if email opt-in is included on the entry form or registration page. One could even add opt-ins for multiple lists, such as the general promotional email list, the deals email lists, or even news and weather alerts.
Here’s a look at each type of promotion and which goals they can help one achieve:
Sweepstakes
Since sweepstakes have a very low barrier to entry, they’re perfect for quickly growing an email database (and social media following if the sweepstakes is added to the business Facebook Page). Sweepstakes are also a great way to keep an audience happy, and by allowing multiple entries, they can help increase site traffic as well. 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 a 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 are also great for generating sponsorship revenue because they are often targeted to a specific demographic. Depending on how many advertisers one wants to work with, a variety of different sponsorship packages can be built.
Pick ‘Ems and 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 one’s 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 the major ballot, there are plenty of opportunities to run smaller, more targeted niche ballots. These are a great way to keep an audience engaged year-round, and can even serve as a stepping stone to a larger metro promotion if one hasn’t been run before. Furthermore, since they have the ability to put one 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 start planning a diverse promotions calendar for the whole year, download the Promotions Calendar Template now.
Shweiki Media's mission has always been to help publishers improve by providing the most profitable, hassle-free printing experience possible. This includes guaranteeing the highest quality product, exceptional customer service and on-time deliver, whether printing magazines, flyers or anything else.
As a printer and publisher, Shweiki Media also believes that this hassle-free experience includes making their clients better. Utilizing relationships with industry experts, Shweiki Media strives to educate clients and help them thrive in the exciting world of publishing--while having lots of fun along the way!
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