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Street Fight Magazine highlights deals program

SourceMedia, a partnership between KCRG-TV9 & The Gazette, in Cedar Rapids continues to be a deals powerhouse. Chris Edwards, VP of sales, puts an emphasis on deals by incentivizing their sales reps to bring in high-quality deals.

An in-depth look at SourceMedia’s deals program’s evolution was recently published in Street Fight Magazine.

A prime example of their high-quality, revenue-generating deals is the recent Gary’s Foods grocery deal. They were able to secure this deal by offering an email opt-in to the merchant, who wanted a way to build up his own email newsletter list. With an 80 percent opt-in rate for Gary’s Foods email list, this deal was a win for the smaller town grocery store and gave them a way to retarget deal buyers with future promotions and offers, not to mention a huge success for the deals program.

Watch a video below of Chris discussing the Gary’s Foods deal.

Hear Best Practices on Promoting Deals on Social Media from The Washington Post

Promoting your deals on social media is hard work, but when used correctly, you can create an engaging atmosphere to share deals and converse with your potential buyers.

Social media platforms, such as Facebook, are perfect for creating awareness around your deals program. Utilize your current following and keep them in the know with local deals you are running. Actively updating social media is just another touch point with your customers, which will build your program’s brand and help gain brand loyalty with customers.

Join us for a webinar “Facebook & Deals: How to Drive Engagement” as we hear from Molly Urciolo, Marketing Mananger from The Washington Post on Thursday, May 17 at 1 p.m. ET. Molly will share her insights and best practices from marketing The Capitol Deal on driving engagement around your deals program with social media.

Reader’s Choice Awards Deals Store brings in 23% more revenue than previous month

Background:
The Record-Journal is a 20K daily circulation paper in Meriden, Connecticut. They are a 5th generation family-owned paper and we recently recognized Liz White, their Associate Publisher, in our Affiliate of the Month feature.

Challenge:
The Record- Journal’s Deal of the Day program has been consistently bringing in revenue, but the team was looking for a way to amplify their deals program and re-engage their audience.

Solution:
After seeing the success other programs have been driving with seasonal stores, the team decided to run a Reader’s Choice Awards Deal of the Day Store. They approached businesses that had received an award in their annual Reader’s Choice Awards and negotiated to find a deal well-suited to their program.

Results:
The Reader’s Choice Awards Deal of the Day Store ran from March 5th through March 10th of 2012. They had a total of 18 deals from various advertisers, including a mexican restaurant, ice cream shop, japanese restaurant, florist and consignment shop.

Running this special deals store for one week generated an impressive $18,229 in gross revenue – 23 percent more than the month of February’s revenue.

Why this worked?
- Because their readers had chosen these merchants for the Reader’s Choice awards, the deals were guaranteed to be appealing.
- Multi-platform promotion: ran mobile, Facebook, print and online ads.
- Deals stores give you a new reason to promote and communicate with your users.
- A Reader’s Choice-themed store is flexible and can be run any time of the year.

Women’s Rugby Team Dresses Up for a Good Cause

The Times-News captured The Elon University women’s rugby team in an unusual match on Saturday, April 17. Dressed in prom dresses and soccer cleats, the team traded in their usual uniforms to raise money for a cause in their local community.

With summer on the horizon, deals for enjoying the warmer weather are heating up. Case in point: deals for Key Lime Cove waterpark made the top 10 list three times for two Shaw Media newspapers nearby the park, and golf deals were a big hit this month. Also, the Miami Herald did a fantastic job selling a higher priced travel deal from MK Travelplan.

Below you’ll find the top 10 individual deals and top 10 deals sites of April from our network of partners.

Top 10 Deals by Total Revenue
1. Miami Herald‘s MK Travelplan
2. Northwest Herald‘s Key Lime Cove
3. HalfPriceCincy’s Boi Na Braza Churrascaria Brazilian Steak House
4. Lake County Journals’ Key Lime Cove (good for Sunday – Friday visits)
5. Belleville News-Democrat‘s Wenneman Meat Co.
6. Lake County Journals’ Key Lime Cove (good for Saturday visits)
7. St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Kemoll’s
8. The Gazette & KCRG-TV’s Amana Colonies Golf Club
9. Bellingham Herald‘s Van Wingerden Garden Center
10. St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Bear Creek Golf Club

Top 10 Deals Sites by Total Revenue
1. HalfPriceCincy
2. The Miami Herald
3. The Washington Post
4. The Gazette & KCRG-TV
5. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
6. Omaha World-Herald
7. KY3-TV
8. WPBN-TV
9. Northwest Herald
10. Fresno Bee

Want more summer deal ideas? Read Create Hot Summer Deals Stores.

Engage Your Audience with a Contest Around this Popular Holiday

Mother’s Day is almost upon us and it’s already time to start thinking about planning your Father’s Day contest. With more than 70 million fathers in the United States alone, you will not want to miss out on generating sponsorship dollars around a Father’s Day contest.

Not only is there a high volume of dads to reach with your contest, but there is a tremendous number of advertisers who target men. In the U.S. there are 8,111 men’s clothing shops, 16,010 hardware stores and 22,116 sporting good stores. Plus, you should also consider targeting sports venues, concert venues, golf courses and the like.

While Mother’s Day might be a tad more commercialized, Father’s Day contests still bring in a high volume of participation. When asked about their successful Father’s Day contest, one of our partners replied: “Mothers are the ones with the cameras, so Father’s Day usually generates more traffic.”

Due to the popularity of the turnkey contest for Mother’s Day, we have brought it back for Father’s Day. The turnkey Father’s Day photo contest is complete with a design template- including flexible ad spots, a sales kit with web and print ads and materials for your sales team.

The time to start selling this contest is now. Advertisers are looking for ways to engage their target audiences around a promotion like this – don’t miss out!

For more information on why you should run a Father’s Day contest, watch the short video below.

You might also be interested in 10 Things to Remember When Running a Contest.

*Source: Census.gov http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb11-ff11.html