This is the third post in our End the Year in the Black series, a blog series connecting media and publishing companies to the audiences that will drive ad revenue, particularly at year-end.
You’re looking for new opportunities in your audience to drive sales revenue and end your year in the black. If you’re a sports network, travelers should be at the top of your list of high value audiences. They’re watching your programming, they’re already planning travel, and travel-related companies should spend big bucks with you to battle for bookings, particularly ahead of year-end travel.
The Sports Network and Travel Audience Connection
We looked at an audience of “Frequent Travelers” and noted that all of their top TV networks are sports channels. They’re 90% more likely than the average consumer to regularly watch ESPN 2 and 86% more likely to watch NBC Sports Network. As a sports network, this is an audience that is actively and frequently on your channel — your job now is to court travel advertisers who will see a strong ROAS by connecting the right message to the right audience on the channel.
Let’s look at four key insights you can provide advertisers in a pre-sales pitch that will wow them with your deep data and persuade them that your channel is the one that will bring them the highest ROI.
Meet the Frequent Traveler
First, a brief meet-and-greet. In the Ignite Platform™, there are easy data visualizations to help you garner quick insights on your audiences. In the Audience Introduction view, we can see that the Frequent Travelers is a male millennial, married, with roughly under half having children at home. They value living an exciting life, being physically active, going to the gym, and, of course, attending sporting events. They’re optimistic and they value freedom and being in charge.
These basic attributes are critical in informing messaging to this group. We’ll dive further into their travel preferences, but knowing that they prioritize fitness gives you a leg up in saying to your potential advertisers, “Hey, we know if you run an add that emphasizes active travel and state of the art gym facilities, this audience is going to perk up.”
Insight One: They Fly With United and Stay at Hilton and Marriott Hotels
If you’re pitching Hilton, you need to present this data and show the media buyers that Marriott is taking the lead with this group — but they’re not up by much. This Frequent Traveler group is an area of opportunity for Hilton and, if they advertise on your network, where you know this audience is tuning in, Hilton has a chance to put their offers front and center and snag the #1 spot.
Same goes for letting United know that these are their people and they need to buy air time to prevent Southwest or Delta from vying for bookings.
Insight Two: Appeal to Their Preferred Style of Leisure Travel
Make creative recommendations in your pitch that will show your advertisers you have granular, fresh data that goes beyond flat demographics and who’s watching what. Let them know that frequent travelers are likely to plan trips for a sporting event or to see family. When your prospective advertiser uses those themes in their ads, they’ll resonate with this audience and allow them to see themselves booking that beach vacation with their family…that just so coincides with a major baseball game.
Tip: run promotions around big year-end sporting events to capture the attention of the frequent traveler!
Insight Three: Incorporate the Travel Attributes that Matter to Them
Fill advertisers in on the travel attributes that will actually inspire them to go from ad to book. These frequent travelers, who you’ll find watching sports networks, care about energy-efficiency, time-saving hacks, and rewarding products. They want a luxurious, enjoyable experience. How can you tie all of these back to what we know about their travel preferences? For example, they like to stay active but how can that be done in a way that is either luxurious or saves time? Advertisers can consider featuring their five-star gym and spa facilities or showing a busy traveler saving time by working out on-site, then going to cheer on their favorite team with their family.
Insight Four: Focus on What Matters to This Audience
Advertising converts when it taps into what matters to a particular audience. For this group, it’s important to them to be an active member of a frequent travel program — how can your advertisers make their rewards program, promotions, and perks central to the creative in their spots? Additionally, they enjoy luxury amenities. We’re back to our focus on a luxurious stay as something that would inspire this group to book.
Bring the Right Message to the Right Audience on the Right Channel
Want to learn more about the different audiences on networks and how advertisers can capitalize on that data? Read our just-released State of Streaming. Ready to jump in and start boosting your year-end ad sales? Request a demo today.
