Online Marketing to Women in Miami Just Got Easier with CoupTessa
Posted by Allison Semancik on Mon, Jul 19, 2010
2010 may very well go down as the year of Deal of the Day websites. Although they are popping up quite frequently, one stands out from the others. Newcomer CoupTessa offers deals targetted at women. In addition to the daily deals, they also have a panel of local experts, named "Tessa's Dream Team," giving beauty and fitness advice to women. Currently, CoupTessa is available in Miami, but plans to offer deals in other cities are in the works.
I recently interviewed CoupTessa co-founder, David Horn. He shares details on the CoupTessa service and how it benefits local businesses who wish to reach women online.
First of all, can you share a short bio of yourself for our readers?
I have worked as an advisor to wealthy families for over 40 years. I spent many years working in the investment management world, ultimately starting my own firm which advised wealthy families on hedge fund investing. That firm was purchased by Morgan Stanley, and I became their global head of marketing for private wealth management until my retirement. I continue to advise families around the world in addition to my responsibilities as the co-founder of CoupTessa. And my co founder of CoupTessa similarly has a long history of entrepreneurship, as the founder of several firms which continue to flourish in Europe, one in real estate development and one in technology built upon an online internet web site.
What is CoupTessa?
CoupTessa is a service focused on helping women in Miami find the very best places in the city that they want, like spas, manicures, pedicures, teeth whitening, yoga, Pilates, restaurants, etc. which we work to provide them each day as a ‘daily deal’ featured on our webpage. These are services always offered at 50% to 90% off of standard retail prices. Our group of thousands of women subscribers come together as ‘the might of many women’ to use the power of collective buying to create enough critical mass to allow a merchant to get an attractive number of new clients as a result of our free online advertising. There is no subscription fee for women to join our website. A new deal is offered each and every day in Miami.
Many of our readers are local businesses who are looking to market online. Please explain what CoupTessa has to offer local businesses.
CoupTessa.com offers merchants access to an extremely attractive group of women subscribers who trust us to find the very best places for services in Miami. In the old days, it would have been like the “ Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval”, because we investigate hundreds and hundreds of merchants to find the very best places and providers of service.
We then work with the merchants to negotiate a very attractive package of services at compelling prices. We design the offer, the advertising visuals, the proper price points, appropriate minimum number of subscribers to be compelling to the merchant, and appropriate maximum number of subscribers so that neither our subscribers nor our merchants will experience too many ‘takers’ and thus compromise the quality of the services being featured each day.
During the twenty four hour period when the deal is offered, subscribers not only buy the deal, but they get their friends and family and business colleagues to join them, using Facebook and Twitter and email, so that ‘the might of many women’ can produce a significant number of buyers to ‘get the deal done’ and vault over the tipping point, or minimum number that the merchant wants.
It is free advertising for the merchants, because unless the minimum number of subscribers is reached each day, we never charge the merchant. So there is no out of pocket cost to the merchant uless the deal is concluded successfully at the end of 24 hours.
What kind of businesses would benefit from offering a deal on
CoupTessa?
We only work with businesses providing services to women..so spas, Pilates and yoga studios, restaurants, special events like concerts and ball games, limousine services, dentists, acupuncturists, photographers, florists, bakeries ,dance studios---the list of service providers is limitless, constrained only by Tessa’s very tough quality screens to be sure that they are the best of breed in their categories! Certainly new businesses trying to achieve some critical mass of new clients would be attracted to our site; similarly businesses that have some ‘excess capacity’, or those who can monitor their clients by booking reservations for services enough in advance that no one suffers from overcapacity issue.
We work with new firms, well established firms, firms seeking a new group of discerning clients. And while the discounts we require are significant, we find our buyers always spend in excess of what the coupon price they paid may be…and they tip generously! So everyone wins!
How does CoupTessa get the word out about a daily deal?
Each day, CoupTessa publishes a daily deal online….we send it to thousands of Miami women who are fans and subscribers of CoupTessa…and they have one twenty four hour period to get the deal ‘done’ by notifying friends to join them in buying the deal…..when they deal crosses over the pre established minimum that we have agreed with the merchant to achieve, our clients’ credit cards are charged and we mail them a coupon that may be redeemed at the merchant.
How does social media play a part in marketing a daily deal?
The business model is vastly benefited by Twitter and Facebook and email, so that the reality of viral marketing has stupendous benefits to the deal visibility and ultimately we achieve enough critical mass so that everyone is happy—merchants and subscribers. All day long, subscribers interact online with their friends to get them to focus on the daily deal and to buy it…that is the core of why it is such a success, and why merchants love it because they are reaching a very hard to access subscriber base of discerning buyers! This is the true meaning of ‘the might of many women’ coming together online! And that is a coup!
For more information on how your business can offer a deal on CoupTessa, visit CoupTessa for Businesses.
Photo credit: Skirsner & lululemon athletica