Deal Current Network Launches New Responsive Platform

The last 45 days have been an exciting time for the tech team at Deal Current Network with two major updates

• On April 1, we released a brand new responsive coupon and deal software platform. This allows clients to launch a new savings site in minutes with deals, coupons, or third party plug-ins.
• Today we released a new website showcasing our fully responsive platform and performance based coupon network

Here is a screenshot of the homepage and please let us know what you think.

Launching a Daily Deal Program for your TV Station

We wanted to share some great thoughts from a daily deal publishing partner of ours.  Our friend Sean Monzet is the Director of Integrated Media at NBC 7 San Diego, an Owner Operated market of NBC Universal. Sean has successfully implemented a daily deal and coupon program at the NBC station called The Goods.  He sat down for five minutes and wrote down a list of things he learned over the years. We hope his advice can help push your program in the right direction.

• Don’t underestimate the importance of a strong, active email list. Always be focused on growing your email list via contests, events, etc.
• As general rule, don’t depend on TV spots to sell vouchers. TV does work if a well-known brand is featured but will not move the needle for lesser known merchants.
• TV can and should be leveraged to get top tier merchants to sign on with your program—that is the advantage you have over Groupon, Living Social, and other programs that don’t have access to TV audience
• Recommend 1 dedicated seller for your deal program…do not depend on traditional TV Acct Execs to source deals…they will come in sporadically
• Provide 2-3 new sales leads to your business development team on weekly basis. They will not be thinking of selling your daily deal program as much as you would like them to be, make it as easy as possible for them to identify strong targets.
• Loop in your stations social media lead on your program and get him/her to post deals to the station’s Facebook and Twitter
  

  Sean Monzet, Dir. of Integrated Media, NBC 7 San Diego

  pages. Be sure to tag/hyperlink merchants social accounts in your posts.

• Leverage your stations “A” programming to bring in top tier merchants: Super Bowl, Olympics,US Open, Oscars, etc. If you have avail inventory try to reserve a :15 spot for your deal program in these programs—the revenue achieved through your deal should exceed what a :15 would have brought in through standard spot sale.
• Position your deal program as an “audience reward” program. This will help you get buy in from news, producers and promotions to get you more promo time

3 Tips for Running an Online Coupon Business

A majority of publishers are adopting coupons and seeing great results. Actions by consumers on coupons grew 42% from 2400 in December to over 3400 in January. The number of coupons grew from 417 in December to 516 in January.

If you are considering adding digital coupons to your site, but haven’t yet then you should read this article from Emarketers.

eMarketer estimates that 92.5 million people in the US redeemed a digital coupon in 2012. By 2014, US adult digital coupon users will surpass 100 million.

We don’t believe that coupons are replacing deals, but we 100% believe that offering deals and coupons will lead to a bigger opportunity.

As a result, we are going to be sharing a lot of market knowledge and to start here are three tips to running a successful coupon program.

1) Make Sure You Get a Great Image From an Advertiser

We see so many merchants use bad photos, out dated photos, cheap stock art in advertisements and wonder why they don’t get a response

Here is a great example of an image that is awesome from, Cafe Ventana, a St. Louis bistro. They have a great picture and their logo placement is clean and clear.

2) Use Great Tags, Not Just the Business Name

Remember consumers aren’t typically looking for a specific business, but a business type.

So use tags that help a customer find what they are looking for in a certain category or neighborhood.

We recommend at a minimum: City, Neighborhood, Zip Code, Specific Services or Food Type.

3) Create Incentives to Sign-Up & Advertising Packages

When you first launch your coupon program, give new advertisers an incentive to try online coupons:

• $29 a month for the first 3 months, then $49 a month
• Get 3 months free, when you sign up for 12 months

Create packages to entice advertisers to run more than one coupon at a time to increase your revenue faster. In our system, you would just divide the monthly spend and enter that for each coupon.

• $99 per month for one coupon
• $179 per month for two coupons ($89.50 a month)
• $249 per month for three coupons ($83 a month)

Bundle coupons with additional advertising to increase performance and your average sale.

• $99 per month for one coupon
• $199 per month for a coupon and 20,000 impressions promoting the offer
• $499 per month, 30,000 impressions, and a 15 second radio or TV ad (if applicable)

Choosing a New Half-Off or Daily Deal Vendor: Deal Current vs. Media Web Connect

2013 is going to be an exciting year for local advertising. We know that with a new year, comes a new revenue budget, and sometimes new vendors to serve you better.

Last year, we saw a lot of clients switch to Deal Current from various vendors including Media Web Connect.

We wanted to share a testimonial from San Diego 6, CW, about why they chose Deal Current over any other provider in the market to power their Meals & Steals program.

“As a station, we were very happy with the level of service that Media Web Connect provided us over the years.

However, we were looking to grow and expand our program. We were courted by many different vendors, but ultimately decided to partner with Deal Current based on their professionalism, presentation, expertise, and of course…the Network. By using their Network model, we always have a full slate of offers on our site whether it’s one of our clients’, or one we’ve picked up from the Network. This has increased our traffic and sales.

My biggest concern was moving over everything we had built with Media Web Connect and launching with Deal Current. That fear disappeared very quickly as the Deal Current team walked us through each step in a clear and efficient manner. We did not experience a single issue during the transfer. “  – Scott Potter, Local Sales Manager, San Diego 6

If you would like to learn more, please email us at sales@dealcurrent.com.

Deal Current Network Breaks 1000 Local Offers on Demand with Mobile Spinach and Double Take Deals Integration

Great deal programs are a combination of great marketing and quality offers. We have already helped our partners with integration into top affiliates like Yipit.com, 8Coupons.com, and Google Offers.

We are now helping our clients expand the offers they can market without adding additional sales people. In September we added two partners: Mobile Spinach and Gannett’s Double Take Deals.

Our network with the addition of these two programs, combined with our local and national offers, now has over 1000 offers on-demand.