KCRG-TV9 and The Gazette run a model retail deal

Background:
SourceMedia, a partnership between KCRG-TV9 & The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been a deals powerhouse since their program began in 2010. Chris Edwards, their VP of Sales and Customer Care, 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.

Challenge:
The Cedar Rapids/ Iowa City area is a market that is flooded with deals programs like Groupon and LivingSocial. KCRG-TV9 and The Gazette needed to find a way to break through the clutter and make their deals stand out. Gary’s Foods also was looking for a way to build up their own email database in order to start emailing them regular in-store offers each week.

Solution:
KCRG-TV9 & The Gazette worked with a local grocery store in Mount Vernon, Gary’s Food, and crafted a deal with two valuable price points giving users a choice for what met their needs. They decided upon a $25 for $50 deal and a $48 for $100 deal, making the higher priced deal even more attractive. During the check-out process, they added an email opt-in for Gary’s Food to help with their database. In addition, *here’s the deal offered to manage the follow-up email campaign to those who purchased the deal and opted-in for future emails from Gary’s Food.

Results:
When the deal was first went live, there wasn’t a limit on the number of deals that could sell. Due to the popularity of the deal, they worked with Gary’s Foods throughout the day and decided to put a limit on the deal and have it run for only one day, rather than the initially agreed upon three days. The $25 deal was capped at 1,000 selling out by 8:30 p.m. and the $48 deal hit its limit at 1,500 sold out by 4:30 p.m.

Because of the appeal of a grocery deal, this deal was promoted by their subscribers, with a 25% referral rate. A survey conducted by *here’s the deal showed that 60% of deal buyers spent more than the certificate was worth when redeeming a deal.

Watch a video of Chris Edwards discussing the Gary’s Foods deal, or read on for a breakdown of why the deal was so successful.

Why It Worked:
From Gary’s Foods perspective, they hoped the deals would attract attention from shoppers in the larger metro areas of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City who would not typically travel to a smaller-town grocery store.

Gary’s Foods not only gained these customers for the one time sale, but had a 80% opt-in rate to receive future deals from the store and make deal buyers return shoppers. In the first of a series of follow-up emails (after customers redeemed their deal), 500 customers received an email with coupons/promotions at Gary’s for the upcoming week. The open rate was for this first email was 22%.

Their promotional campaign includes a premium position in The Gazette, five 10-second commercials on KCRG-TV9, banner ads on all of their websites, social media mentions and eblasts. The sales reps that sold this deal did additional promotion to get the word out about this deal; they also printed flyers to distribute around the town, including a college campus.