Shweiki teams up with Matt Coen and Julie Foley of Second Street Promotions Lab—a site that works with over 3,000 media partners, consulting on topics such as email marketing, contests, and online promotions—to present a must-watch webinar on how digital is expanding opportunities for readers’ choice polls and ballots more than ever before.
or Click here to download the audio podcast of this presentation.
Ballots
Magazines have relied on readers’ choice polls or ballots for a number of years now for special issues and stories (such as the “Best of College” feature in Study Breaks magazine or Austin Monthly’s “Best of the City” survey), and digital advancements have made them more valuable—and easy to use—than ever.
Julie Foley, Matt’s partner at Second Street elaborates on how new tools are allowing magazines to work their magazines more efficiently.
The example above allows for a combination of both a seeded-in entry form and a write-in option. Once the user has chosen their preferred form of entry, the program connects the data with like matches, eliminating the huge hassle of manually counting and calculating vote
Revenue Opportunities
There’s long been an empty space with digital in relation to how to make money online with a ballot or promotion. It turns out that now—between upgraded listings, category sponsors, online ads, live events, the print issue itself and more—there are a lot more opportunities for digital revenue, a few of which are outlined below…
Upgrading Listings
An upgraded listing is a revenue option for digital ballots that allow a user to click on an inputed entry and have that business’s digital logo (including links to one’s online pages) featured on a drop button.
Online Ads
Another revenue service for a readers’ choice promotion is a digital special print issue. An issue that sells well in print often sells well in digital, especially when a ballot option is involved (as audience involvement increases issue loyalty). Creating special options online for both consumers and advertisers allows one to increase revenue on a value-based decision.
