Last Friday my roommate opened the sports section of the newspaper and noticed a two page spread on the paper’s football pick contest. “Look at this,” she urged. “They have listed the advertisers’ picks for the games this weekend.”
Indeed they had.
Below their pictures, eleven advertisers’ picks were listed along with their names and the names of their businesses. These were the advertisers providing the prizes for the contest and advertising in the two-page spread which promoted the contest. Since their picks were in the center of the paper, the picks jumped out at the reader.
“That is smart,” I replied. “The newspaper involved the advertisers by having them make those picks.”
Contests are notorious for getting the involvement of consumers. This time of year, consumers frequently participate in contests which offer the opportunity to pick the winners of football games. Football fans love to guess the winners, don’t they? Melding their interest in picking football game winners with the involvement that consumers have in contests, the local newspaper created the “Click, Pick, and Win” contest. Entrants can sign up and make their picks online. Their results are totaled each week and added into a running total. Weekly prizes as well as a grand prize are awarded.
Tapping into the football hype at the beginning of the season is smart for the newspaper and for the advertisers. Why? First of all, most readers of sports pages are part of a hard-to-find market: men. Guys read the sports pages, especially this time of the year, to keep up with their favorite team and find out what is happening with other teams, too. If men are a business’s target market, this is an excellent vehicle to reach them.
Second, guys who are football fans love to participate in guessing which team will win a game. Setting up a contest in which they can do this on a weekly basis gives them the opportunity to do so and have bragging rights as to their picks for the week.
The newspaper took this a step further, however, with the third reason that this idea is smart. By having the advertisers make their picks every week, the newspaper opened the door for feedback to the advertisers. One of the greatest challenges to selling media is feedback. The advertisers’ weekly picks will prompt unsolicited comments from consumers on a particular game or week’s picks such as “You did okay this week on your picks, didn’t you?” or “I can’t believe that you picked New York in that game!”
These picks give advertisers an opening for conversation with consumers and the opportunity to build a relationship with them. The picks give both the target market and the advertisers a common interest. Rather than being a stranger who wants to take the consumer’s money, the advertisers become people, establishing trust. After all, you can trust another football fanatic, can’t you?
Trust opens the door to building a long term relationship as a customer and a business person. These relationships are profitable for both parties. That is what you want from your marketing.
The next time that you are offered an advertising opportunity, take a careful look at it. Does the offer involve your customer? Does it offer an opportunity for two-way communication with your customer? Will it afford you the chance to lay a foundation of trust and build a relationship with your customer?
If it does, grab it. That is profitable advertising.
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