Valpak 2.0 - Westfair Communications

Call 10LocalCoupons.com the Valpak of the digital age. The difference is savings are delivered to your inbox rather than your mailbox.

Eric Straus of Pleasantville, creator of the localized online job classifieds site RegionalHelpWanted.com, developed another way for retailers to target the mobile market and for local radio stations and cable channels to vie for direct-mail marketing dollars.

Broadcasters promote the website ”“ 10LocalCoupons.com ”“ where the consumer signs up to receive discounts via text or email messages from local retailers.

“There”™s an app for you to text the coupon to your phone,” Straus said. “But 85 percent of our coupons are still printed rather than texted.”

Mobile couponing has grown into a $6.5 billion market in a short amount of time, Straus said. His newest venture, which he launched last summer, has nearly 10,000 businesses on board marketing to a database of 50,000 recipients.

Retailers pay a monthly rate to participate in 10LocalCoupons.com, which rises with each new customer registration. When a coupon placement is purchased, the rate is locked in for the retailer.

Revenue earned is split among the radio stations and cable channels that promote the website and Straus”™ company, which handles all back-end operations and customer support.

The service is similar to deal-of-the-day site Groupon in that discounts are offered to the consumer by participating retailers, driving traffic. Groupon discounts average between 50 to 90 percent off per sale; 50 percent of the sale goes to Groupon and the other half to the retailer.

The 10LocalCoupons.com model lets the retailer “decide if they”™re doing 10, 15, 20 percent off ”“ they”™re only paying one fixed cost for whatever”™s redeemed.”

Straus does not consider himself to be in the business of new technology.

“I”™m in the Valpak business,” he said. “It”™s really an old-line media business with a slight new media twist.”