Local television stations traverse a rocky landscape in this modern, digital age, from the competing stations with which they’ve always had to contend to a vast array of content streaming devices. Garnering ratings isn’t just a matter of creating great promos anymore – according to Jackie Bergeron, VP of local analytics at Nielsen, “measuring and increasing the effectiveness of local station promotions is more critical than ever.”

Presenting at Tuesday’s webinar co-produced by PromaxBDA and Nielsen, “Promotional Effectiveness: Learn to Optimize and Maximize Your Promotions,” Bergeron presented research pointing to new areas of consideration for local stations engaged in the never-ending quest to get the most bang from their marketing buck. She was joined by Bill Case, creative services director for KRQE Media Group, and Justin Lewis, director of research for Fisher Communications (recently acquired by Sinclair Broadcast Group).

Lewis’ KOMO Seattle recently partnered with Nielsen to measure the effectiveness of a campaign it ran promoting a new anchor hired from a competing station. The study’s most telling data point revealed that 22% of KOMO viewers who were exposed to the promos seven to nine times tuned in for the new anchor, more than double the amount of a control group who was not exposed to the promos at all. Those seven to nine exposures ended up being the sweet spot for increased tune-in: At 24.3%, groups exposed to the promos four to six times tuned in at only about a 4% higher rate than the unexposed, while the rate of tune-in for groups exposed to the promos more than 10 times, was less than 3% higher than the unexposed group’s rate.

These figures indicate that promos viewed more than nine times don’t offer a great return on that investment, while promos viewed less than seven times might be aired a bit more frequently in order to be better optimized. For Justin Lewis, “Having this kind of data made it a lot easier to justify making decisions with our promotional budget,” he said. “It provides ammo for increasing budgets or allocating budgets responsibly.”

Bill Case, whose KRQE Media Group is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said that KOMO’s opportunity to do a case study with Nielsen is a luxury his station doesn’t have.

“Measuring frequency and reach is a challenge and a lot of that needs to be done on gut,” he said. “We have more than one station so we can use our own air, so we’re very strategic in trying to find news viewers in other places. But it’s very difficult to find that sweet spot. We’re guilty of overkill a lot of times. We figure that too much is better than too little, but we don’t have any way to test that.”

Touching on the growing importance of social media in station promotion, Lewis said “There’s been a lot of work done by KOMO into social media and it’s been really encouraging,” including pushes around recent seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” that resulted in Seattle becoming one of the top markets for those shows. “I’d like to see more data from Nielsen around the overall impact of a campaign, not just on-air but online as well,” he said.

Case chimed in, “[there’s a] whole generation growing up not watching TV at all. We find social media a good way to reach them and remind them to go watch TV with their parents and maybe grab those new viewers.”

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