Business Challenge
CouponCabin (www.couponcabin.com) is an aggregate online coupon site that helps shoppers navigate through the difficult world of coupon codes to provide consumers savings beyond those they find on a merchant's site. As a relatively new web site, CouponCabin needed to push through the noise of the other aggregators and get its unique message heard: unlike others, it does not require online users to register in order to take advantage of its service. Users can remain anonymous or sign up for a free newsletter, which provides a weekly update on codes from more than 800 retail merchants.
In an effort to find a solution to this challenge, President and founder Scott Kluth began investigating different approaches to increase the number of users who visited the website and used his discount codes. Although he had received some local coverage through informal contacts and some radio advertising, Kluth was looking for a firm with the knowledge and expertise to generate regional and national media coverage.
Background
Kluth decided to start the company after continually seeing a box for a coupon or promo code while shopping online, but he never had one to use. Knowing that someone else was getting a better deal then he was got his entrepreneurial juices flowing, and he decided to develop the premier online database of coupons used for Internet shopping. It didn't hurt that his background included years of experience in e-commerce.
CouponCabin's target market is comprised of women age 28-45, middle income, college educated and married with a couple of young children. These "soccer moms" are the shoppers who do not have much time on their hands but are savvy enough to go online and order what they need. With his knowledge of consumer buying trends, Kluth built the online coupon site and now needed to build his audience.
Solution
Tech Image began by researching regional and national media who cover online shopping and, in particular, seasonal shoppers. The objectives of the program were twofold: to achieve maximum brand awareness and increase web site visits through targeted media placements.
Tech Image began an intensive media research program to determine the best media mix and the percentage of national versus regional coverage to reach CouponCabin’s goals, and concluded that a mix of print and broadcast media would yield the best results.
Tech Image’s strategic approach was to create awareness by developing a news hook around Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is a key indicator of holiday retail season profitability. Within the first 24 hours news was picked up by more than 20 web portals. Editors and reporters from daily newspapers, news stations, daily online publications and magazines who covered online shopping and holiday spending were contacted to create CouponCabin brand awareness and generate new traffic to the web site.
Results
Crashed servers aren’t supposed to happen with today’s more robust Internet, but it happened to CouponCabin. Through intensive media relations efforts to personally contact key editors and reporters, Couponcabin.com experienced so much traffic to its site that it temporarily went down due to overload. The company executed a load-balance backup plan for its servers to accommodate all the new users.
Specific data from the initial media relations program included: 105% growth in web traffic over the same day in 2004, and an average of 2,600 coupons clicked per hour, an unprecedented record for Couponcabin. By the following Monday, the coupons clicked per hour jumped to 4,092.
As a result, the PR program continued through 2006. During the year, Tech Image applied a similar approach with news hooks around Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and back-to-school shopping. Using a similar Black Friday strategy a year later, visits and sales tripled from the year before. In 2006, savvy online shoppers made CouponCabin their new home. The site grew by 215% (301% just in Q4). During 2006, it had 18,200,000 visitors, 28,000,000 page views and 19,800,000 coupons clicked, saving shoppers approximately $10,000,000. |
"Good Morning America's coupon expert did a spot on using CouponCabin to save money for Christmas. As the show aired from east to west, the site kept going down. That was the beginning.”
— Scott Kluth, CEO, CouponCabin |
