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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.

Selling Strategies for Securing the Best Offers

Running a deals program requires staying focused on the essential tactics for success and nothing is more important than consistently getting good deals.

And selling deals is an art form. You must balance the needs of the merchant with your own revenue goals as well as keeping a close eye on what you audiences is and isn’t willing to buy from you. Approaching new advertisers and negotiating with them for deals takes gumption and finesse.

Join me for “The Art of Selling Deals: Strategies for Securing the Best Offers” as we hear from Jeff Shabram, VP of Digital Advertising from the Omaha World-Herald on April 26 at 1 pm ET.

Jeff will discuss everything from organizing your team to closing a deal to setting yourself up for future business with your customers.

This month, we are thrilled to honor Liz White from the Record-Journal Publishing Company for her success with her deals program.

Who: Liz White
Title: Associate Publisher for New Media and Vice President
Media Company: Record-Journal Publishing Company

Job Description: I oversee new media strategy for our three companies, which includes two daily newspapers. I am the fifth generation of our family business and I feel lucky to have a career I love and have the opportunity to help shape the direction of the company for the future as I work daily with my dad, our president and publisher. In addition to Deal of the Day, my new media role also includes digital initiatives such as R-J All Access, which we launched in January and is our new all-inclusive digital subscription offering access to our content through our website, iPad app, e-edition, archives, mobile site and email news alerts. Our companies are fortunate to have many dedicated, hard-working people and I am excited to work with all of them to continuously change and grow our company as the industry evolves.

Keys to Deals Success:
As Second Street advocates, two of the main keys to success with deals are high quality deals and a large email audience, so our sales reps, managers and new media team put a lot of thought and effort into those two aspects. To support the deal program efforts further, we have a Deal Team that meets regularly to review deals and plan initiatives for our program. The members of that team include our publisher, advertising director, digital sales director and myself.

Three recent projects that the team planned were a Cyber Monday deal store, a Readers’ Choice deal store and a Little Caesars free pizza giveaway and contest. We feel that putting a lot of effort into creating excitement around our deal site through these types of projects contributes to the growth of our Deal of the Day brand and in turn helps attract quality deals from advertisers and helps grow our email audience. For these projects, in addition to getting many high quality deals, a key factor in the success has been using every single promotional tool we have to get the word out everywhere and create a buzz, so we promote them in our daily newspaper (including a very prominent spadea on page one), TMC products, weekly newspapers, websites, mobile sites, Facebook pages and emails. The results have been exciting. For the Readers’ Choice deal store specifically, we knew we were approaching businesses that were voted as the favorites in our community, so by definition we were getting high quality deals and businesses to participate as requested by our readers.

What impact has Deals had on your overall digital revenue? How have you made it a priority within your organization?
Deals are a growing component and we expect them to be about 10 percent of digital revenue this year. We’ve made deals a priority through the deal team that I mentioned and by training our sales reps and targeting businesses that are a good fit for deals. Our salespeople are glad to now have another tool to help local businesses through deals, which are especially attractive for businesses who don’t want to pay money upfront for marketing, but who would still like to draw new customers and benefit from free print and online promotion that accompany our deals. We have also asked many people throughout the company to participate in the growth of our deal program by constantly talking to people about the benefits of signing up for deals so we can grow our email audience, whether they’re talking to customers on the phone or in person or at events where we’re promoting our company.

Let’s Get Personal:
I live in Meriden, CT with my husband Mike. We’ve been married for a year and half and have been together more than 14 years since high school. I love spending time with my husband, friends and family, including three nieces and a nephew. I am on the executive board of our Meriden YMCA and I am a member of a local chapter of BNI (Business Network International). I have a passion for traveling, aerobics, soccer and food. And I’m a die-hard fan of the New York Yankees.

Baseball Brings Magic to LA

With the Los Angeles Dodgers recently changing ownership to Magic Johnson, it will bring a new meaning to opening day. In an effort to celebrate the excitement of opening day, Dodgers fans lined up outside Dodger Stadium on March 28, 2012 to purchase their tickets. The Los Angeles Daily News captured the reflection of the stadium in this Dodger fan’s sunglasses after he purchased his much-envied tickets.

Our February 2012 Affiliate of the Month is Shannon Dunnigan from Gatehouse Media. We are proud of the work she does across all the Gatehouse Properties for online promotions!

Who: Shannon Dunnigan; CEO, RadarFrog.com, a division of GateHouse Media, Inc.

Job Description: I primarily focus on two digital products at GateHouse Media, Inc., RadarFrog.com online coupons and DailyDeals. My goal is to ensure that our consumers have a valuable experience with a vast selection of compelling coupons from RadarFrog.com and with the deepest discounts from the highest echelon of merchants through our DailyDeals program. I do my best to support all of the talented and hardworking people at our local newspapers by seeking and developing training, sharing best practices and research, and creating programs that will help our folks increase both consumer engagement and local sales with these products.

Keys to Deals Success: Many folks (Matt Coen, President & Co-Founder of Second Street, included) have hit the nail on the head when they say that there are two things that contribute to a successful deals program – deal quality and audience size. These are absolutely key. Our top performing sites have successfully identified what businesses their subscribers would like to see deals from and have consistently grown their database of email addresses with people that want to buy these local deals. Of course, adding special promotion via focused initiatives like Cyber Monday, offering multiple deals, providing incentives for folks to share these deals with their friends and extending the life cycle of these deals are all additional ways to boost a program.

What has been most critical to our success with deals has been focus and support from our local publishers. Our strongest sites are those that have made this initiative a priority, including dedicating resources, sitting in on deals committee meetings, vetting deals, brainstorming prospects and ensuring that the proper promotion goes behind each and every deal. Our savvy sales reps then go out with the confidence and backing they need to secure deals from the best businesses in town. Our loyal consumers scoop them up and go on to do business with these top-notch merchants. It creates a nice cycle and is a win-win-win for the consumer, the local business owner and for us.

How is GateHouse approaching deals from a chain perspective and how is it helping individual sites perform better:
We’re working on programs that will be as turnkey as possible, saving the local sites time and resources, and freeing them up to focus on getting high quality deals from the best local merchants. Some of the things we’re working on right now include monthly contests that will help build our databases and enhance consumer awareness. Many of these will be run in conjunction with deal stores that leverage particular seasons or events (i.e. Mother’s Day, Dads and Grads and Cyber Monday).

We’re holding our first sales event in Canton, OH next week. During this event we’ll educate local business owners on the concept of DailyDeals and will ultimately allow them to sign up for the program. We plan to run this event in several of our markets, in an effort to bolster our deal offering foundation in 2012.

We’re supporting local efforts to hire deals sales champions in our top markets and will work directly with each of them. We’re working with our top deals experts on training programs that will benefit all of our sites. We’re fine tuning a concept (Big Deal), shared by Second Street and Shaw Suburban Media, and are rolling it out to sites as an opportunity to either refresh or augment the local deals program. We’re also exploring nationally syndicated deal programs to complement our local offerings.

Let’s Get Personal:
I live in Providence, RI with my love, Paul and two adorable kitties. I enjoy spending time with family and friends. I love to travel and have visited some really neat places, like the Galapagos Islands, Thailand, China, Scandinavia, Cuba, South Africa, Costa Rica, the British Virgin Islands and the United Kingdom in the last few years. I’m active with my alma mater, Bryant University, serve on the board of my high school alumni association and do my best to stay involved in the community. I enjoy sailing, running, taking Zumba classes, doing yoga or otherwise working out when I can.

For DailyDeals tidbits, follow @GHMDailyDeals on Twitter.

Top Takeaways from 2011 Second Street Awards

Last week, we hosted our 3rd annual Second Street Awards where we showcased our partners’ best contests and deals run on our platforms over the past year. In addition to specific contest and deal categories (for example, Best Facebook Contest or Best Travel Deal), we also honored partners, according to market size, who hit it out of the park with UPICKEM and Deadline Deals. Below, you can find the Top Ten Takeaways from this presentation. If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording or see a full list of finalists and winners in each category.

1. Sweepstakes are great email database builders. Social boost, a feature that rewards entrants for sharing the contest, is a must-do for UPICKEM sweepstakes contests.

2. Service deals allow you to explore different price points, as well as pushing into higher priced deals. Our three finalists’ prices ranged from $29 to $1,850. Auto detailing is a category that’s been successful in many markets.

3. Our Fantasy Auto Racing contest could be your highest revenue-producing sports contest in 2012. With a 37-week lineup, Fantasy Auto Racing is one contest that keeps your users coming back to your site week after week.

4. Retail deals shouldn’t be too specific. The key to a successful retail deal is that it is open to all products in the store – avoid limiting the deal to specific products.

5. Health and Beauty deals are one of our top categories. Since this category of deal is frequently running, it is important to know what the market value is for your deal. Keep an eye on the competition and be sure you’re pricing your deal competitively.

6. Facebook contests are skyrocketing. Facebook contests are an excellent way to build your brand’s likes. Use the audience you build on Facebook as a selling feature to have contests run exclusively on your advertisers’ pages.

7. Don’t forget about national chains for restaurant deals. National chains are approachable – don’t be afraid to secure them in your market. A convenient location is key. For most local media sites, family friendly environments are best. Find what aligns best for your audience.

8. Photo contests work. Photo contests are still our most popular and most versatile contest type – kids contests were the most popular category in 2011, dethroning pets contests from their long-standing reign!

9. Travel deals, when crafted right, can usher in lots of revenue. Think regional, drivable from your location; Always try to work with the property directly instead of a third-party.

10. Recreation deals are inherently social. Whether you’re going to a theme park or taking a ski trip, you are most likely going with friends and family. This social aspect of recreation deals means more people will purchase if the deal is good. Anything entertainment-based will excite your audience.

Are your takeaways for contesting and daily deals different? Leave us a note in the comments to share what you learned this year.