WPSD Aids Local Business With New Media Solution

Most businesses that advertise on local TV want to reach the masses, the broadcast audience. For car dealers, furniture stores, fast food, etc., that makes sense.

But what if you’re a local business in a mid-size market in say, Paducah, Ky., with a very narrowly-focused customer base and a modest, by TV standards, budget? Can a TV station help that kind of business get leads?

It can if the TV station is WPSD, the Paxton-owned NBC affiliate in Paducah, and the director of emerging media is Sara Droke.

“You wouldn’t think a Facebook contest and email marketing would work for a hearing aid company,” says Droke, “but it did, with measurable results.”

The Audiology & Hearing Center wanted to grow its Facebook likes and build an email database.

WPSD created the Hear Clearly Giveaway sweepstakes that ran on both the station’s website (http://www.wpsdlocal6.com) and the Audiology & Hearing Center’s Facebook page. The prize was a made-for iPhone hearing aid, valuable enough to encourage lots of entries and specific enough to ensure only relevant entries.

“We used a mix of on-air promotion, in-news time on WPSD’s morning and mid-day news, ads on our website, posts to the WPSD Facebook page, and messages to WPSD’s contest and promotions email database,” says Droke.

The registration form for the contest was designed strategically to identify qualified leads for the advertisers by including several survey questions.

WPSD used Second Street Promotions Lab, (http://secondstreetlab.com), an online promotions company serving the media industry, to help run the contest.

In the end, 15% of respondents said they wanted someone from The Audiology & Hearing Center to contact them, while another 26% indicated interest in a lunch-and-learn event.

“The incorporation of new media is the most exciting part of this,” says Droke, “it was tailor-made for them.”