A local advertiser on KOSA in Odessa-Midland, Texas, was so impressed with the digital advertising campaign done for his business by the station that he went on camera to let others know that he wanted “to invest more in that type of advertising.”

“He was very eager to do it,” says Don Davis, KOSA’s GM. “He has done TV with us for many years, but what he has been doing with us digitally has had great results.”

In the testimonial, which has been running on-air on KOSA, Stephen Linneman, the owner of a local drug screening company, cites how KOSA was able to provide proof of how his digital marketing campaign was working.

Davis says in the first month of the digital marketing campaign, Linneman saw 20 new customers walk in his door as a direct result of the audience targeting feature in the digital marketing campaign.

Frank M. Rich III, KOSA’s digital sales manager, says audience targeting works by setting up geo-fences around specific locations that meet the demographic profile of a target customer.

“When a targeted customer enters one of those geo-fenced locations, a message is pushed out onto their mobile device or connected device,” Rich says.

He says the program can “actually track people who saw the message and responded by entering the business.”

Linneman’s drug screening company does testing for oil workers, truck drivers and government agencies.

KOSA’s digital marketing campaign was able to set up geo-fences that targeted companies and workers that needed drug screening.

“We can go down to specific street addresses,” Davis says. “We can even go with satellite mapping overviews and outline a physical area for the facility that we want to geo fence. We did truck stops. We did some specific companies where we knew that management was in need of pre-employment screening.”

A drug screening company is a niche business that requires targeting a particular type of audience.

Can KOSA’s digital marketing be tailored for any business?

“We have used it for businesses of almost every type,” Davis says. “We have done it with retailers. We have done it with food-related businesses. It works for the automotive vertical. It works in the health vertical. There are digital campaigns that could be custom tailored to virtually any type of advertiser.”  

Rich says one of the advantages of digital is that it is very cost efficient.

“There are starting points that should be within the reach of virtually any advertiser and we can take it up from there,” he says.

He says KOSA has even turned to digital advertising to promote its news, reaching directly into homes where the station has opportunities to grow viewers, “which I think is brilliant. We can really come up with a precise message that targets the homes and areas we want, and I think we have used that to pretty good effect.”

Davis says digital advertising is one of the resources the station has through Gray Digital Media.

Being on broadcast and digital is the best of all worlds because it reaches different screens in different places that people will be viewing, Davis says.

“In the not-too-distant future, digital revenue for Gray could easily become the majority of the revenue of the entire corporation,” Davis says. “But broadcast is never going to go away. It is going to be a case of complementary vehicles — broadcast and digital — working together to get the best possible results for all the clients.”

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