As we get closer to the May 1-2 Digital Revenue Summit in Chicago, we’ll profile some of the winners from our Digital Innovation Awards contest. Some of the winners from that contest will present at the conference.
Today, we’ll feature Stacey Spears, a local sales manager at WJXT Channel 4 in Jacksonville, Fla. Her station won for best Native Campaign.
Name: Stacey Spears
Title: Local Sales Manager, WJXT Channel 4
Tell us a little about the campaign? This was a partnership between Mayo Clinic and WJXT that allowed them to publish weekly articles that educated consumers on key areas of practice for the hospital under Neurology, Cardiology, Oncology, Orthopedic, etc. found in the top story placement section of our website and in their own section titled “Health Highlights” under the Health section of our website, news4jax.com both mobile and desktop. The power of using traditional broadcast web drivers along with digital promotional ads provided them an opportunity to reach a larger audience. The purpose of the campaign was to create awareness and identify symptoms for various diseases, inform on preventative behaviors and treatments available when diagnosed. This was an extremely successful campaign that ran over a 9 month timeframe.
Why do you think it was so successful? It was successful because we identified from the beginning how we were going to measure success from the client; through time on article and number of people that read the article. This was meant to educate the community, create awareness and identify symptoms for various diseases as I stated earlier. The goal was a minute or higher for time on article and they averaged 1.47. They were able to determine which articles people had more engagement with based on longer time on page and click- through to links on their website tracked through page views. They had 4,731 page views on their website from our native program over 9 months. The client verified we were targeting the right audience of 75k +HHI by using Nielsen Scarborough data on News4jax.com and found we delivered that audience at 67% .
Has native become a core part of your revenue story and if so, why? Native advertising is a focus for the station because consumers respond more to organic advertising; they are viewed 53% more than banner ads. We have struggled in our station with the medical category and this is a great way to start an interesting conversation. All medical organizations are publishing articles already, why not help them reach a much larger audience through a respected news website people trust in News4jax.com. Our goal is to target the major hospitals with this concept to spark a meaningful client needs analysis and ultimately, come up with a customized solution that includes Native advertising. We have been able to use it as a revenue stream for certain events; like Florida Power and Light making families aware of the dangers of the Christmas Tree lights during the Holidays and Southern Oak Insurance telling consumers things to look for in their Hurricane Insurance Coverage during Hurricane Mathew.
Anything else you’d like to share on your native strategy? The important thing is to manage the client’s expectations. This is not going to be a campaign designed to drive leads, but a long term solution to drive brand awareness and establish credibility as the expert.