A holiday map to the area's most festively decorated homes generated a $1,500 sponsorship and invaluable community connection for a local Wyoming newspaper.
CREATE:
The News Letter Journal developed a “Christmas Lights Cruise” to spotlight the most festive holiday homes in their area and share the joy with local readers. In 2022, the News Letter Journal staff kicked off their pilot program by scouting out the best-dressed holiday homes themselves and using Google Maps to mark them. They promoted their online map in their social media feeds as a family activity to enjoy after Christmas Eve services and throughout the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Even without pre-press, the program was so successful in generating traffic to the decorated homes and newspaper’s website, the News Letter Journal decided to repeat the program in 2023.
SELL:
For their 2023 “Christmas Lights Cruise,” the News Letter Journal landed a $1,500 sponsorship from the local energy company. They ran a series of quarter-page ads in the newspaper promoting the program and inviting residents to submit their addresses, also running promotions through their website, newsletter, YouTube channel, podcast and social media feeds from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day. The sponsor was prominently displayed and mentioned in all advertising throughout the duration of the program. The promotions culminated in a full-page ad on Dec. 20 that contained links to the online map and a printed version as well. This was followed by a social media update of the map on Dec. 23, and a digital re-release in the paper's email newsletter on Christmas morning.
PROFIT:
In addition to the $1,500 sponsorship generated by the “Christmas Lights Cruise,” the newspaper received praise from the community for providing this fun event. The initial release of the map on Facebook had a reach of 3,340 and engagement of 830. Publisher Robert Bonnar says, “At the end of the day, it was another successful campaign — proven out by a spurt of new addresses that we were able to incorporate right away after the initial release of the map in our print edition.” These late entries demonstrated the strengths of both the print and digital products, and the power of using them together. The map featured a total of 78 homes and generated 1,404 online views.
The News Letter Journal plans to repeat the program again this year, and the energy company is enthusiastic to continue their participation as a partner and sponsor. A holiday map to the area’s most festively decorated homes generated a $1,500 sponsorship and invaluable community connection for a local Wyoming newspaper.
Whether you want to create your own “Deck the House” promotion, or need help to expand holiday sales, Metro has you covered. Check out this year’s Holiday Advertising Service, including the layout and images for a "Holiday Lights Tour" that was inspired by The News Letter Journal’s success.
For more Succe$$ Stories like this, visit our new MetroCreativeConnection site and go to the Planning tab. Another added bonus for all of our news media partners are the educational webinars that Metro hosts — free of charge for attendees. Here is a link to our webinars page where you can see what we have coming up, as well as our complete webinar archive: https://mcg.metrocreativeconnection.com/publish/newmcc/category.php?Live-Training-Webinars&category=131
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