We are very excited about this change as BuyWithMe is one of the largest providers of local offers. We are also pleased that our valued members as well as merchant partners will continue to have access to premier deals in their local areas.

Our rebranded white label platform, BluLabel, will continue to operate daily deal sites for some of the largest top tier local media including Open Table, Cumulus Broadcast, CBS, the San Francisco Chronicle | SFGate, LIN Media, and Citadel.

For those of you who have journeyed with us through these fun years, here are a few facts to help you through this transition.

Are you a business owner?

• Our team is here to continue to assist you with any past or ongoing promotions, and to work with you on future promotions for the daily deal websites that we power. Please visit us at BluLabel.com/merchants.aspx for more information.

Are you a subscriber?

• You will continue to receive amazing deals directly in your email inbox from BuyWithMe. Go ahead and add BuyWithMe@email.BuyWithMe.com now to your email contacts so that you don’t miss a single one. For security reasons all of your credit card information has been erased. To purchase new offers from BuyWithMe you will have to re-enter your credit card information.

• If you have vouchers in your TownHog account, you will still be able to access these any time you wish.  Simply visit their new home at BuyWithMe.com or click here starting on September 14th, and sign into your account using your regular email and password.  Don’t forget, vouchers were automatically emailed to you when you purchased them. Be sure to check your email for those vouchers.

• You can still use your credits when you purchase new deals at BuyWithMe. To check the status of your credits you can sign into your account on TownHog today, or at BuyWithMe‘s account pages starting September 14th.

• BuyWithMe will continue to deliver amazing deals to the palm of your hands via their iPhone app.  Download the BuyWithMe iPhone app from the App Store today.

For any outstanding questions, contact TownHog customer support a support@townhog.com until October 15, 2011.  After October 15, 2011, BuyWithMe will be available to answer any questions at http://www.BuyWithMe.com/contact_us.

We can honestly say that it has been an amazing journey and we have delighted in every moment. We are thankful for the continued support throughout the years and look forward to those to come.

Companies looking to provide mobile daily deals can effortlessly do so using TownHog's daily deals private label platform for mobile.

We're delighted to benefit from a fully integrated platform that offers mobile, for its convenience and the competitive edge it gives us.

TownHog, the leading provider of private label daily deals services, announced the first white label daily deals iPhone application. SweetJack.com, the daily deals division of Cumulus Broadcasting, and The San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate Daily Deals, are the first of TownHog’s elite publisher partners to offer the branded mobile app to their subscribers. Other media publishers offering daily deals can present their audience with the convenience of an iPhone app too. Furthermore, companies wishing to deploy mobile-only daily deals can also benefit from TownHog’s platform.

Cumulus Radio Broadcasting's SweetJack now in the App Store

Besides a great tool for daily deal subscribers, the mobile app supplements the on-air promotions TownHog’s media partners give their daily deals. When viewers or listeners see or hear an on-air promotion, they can interact immediately via their mobile phone. Mobile allows TownHog’s media partners to improve the conversion from radio, television and print to the daily deals they promote.

Daniel Caplin, VP of Social Commerce at SweetJack.com, commented, “Mobile is the ideal complement to our media marketing solutions for small and medium local businesses. We're delighted to benefit from a fully integrated platform that offers mobile, for its convenience and the competitive edge it gives us.”

 The white label daily deals app for iPhone allows users to check and purchase the deal of the day directly from their phone. Its set of features ensures that customers won’t need a computer – or a printer -- to take advantage of local offers they hear or see about on radio or television. The ability to redeem vouchers without a physical voucher is especially important to some partners with appearance-conscious demographics. As for partners who provide travel related content, the new app allows their readers to get local deals in new cities in a matter of seconds.

“At Townhog we believe a mobile product strategy not only strengthens our suite of services, but also augments the already tremendous reach and influence of our media partners,” commented Lilia Martinez- Coburn, VP of Marketing and Product for Townhog. ”We are delighted to offer them the iPhone app as the first of many mobile products to come.”

TownHog offers the iPhone app to all of our white label partners, as well as to other companies looking to participate in the mobile daily deals space. For more information visit Partners.TownHog.com.

TownHog, the largest and fastest growing provider of daily deals white label services, announced that it reaches over 50 million people online through its media partner network. The network also reaches millions more users through its media partners' radio and television stations, and newspapers.

This year has brought rapid growth to the San Francisco based company. Since January, TownHog launched its program in 25 new cities for CBS Local, as well as OpenTable’s Spotlight service, Cumulus Radio’s SweetJack.com, and LIN Media’s SaveNowLocal.com. Today the company provides daily deals in over 46 cities across the U.S. and Canada.

In December 2010, just one year after launching, TownHog announced its six million viewership mark. Six months later, its audience has increased nearly tenfold. This rapid growth reflects the network’s success in building a win-win-win platform for consumers, merchants and media partners.

Interesting article today in 1 to 1 Media about how Walt Disney viewed customer loyalty:

Walt Disney once said: "Do what you do so well they want to come back and bring their friends." 

Well said. I spent over 7 years in the customer loyalty business before coming to TownHog. People occasionally ask me how I could make the transition to a business that, on the surface, is incorrectly perceived to not be fostering loyalty. I wish I had previously had Walt's quote to answer.

Daily local deals are a great way to have consumers explore and discover fantastic businesses and services. Unlike traditional coupons or banner ads, this is a way to ensure that the customer is highly motivated to come to the business and spend money with the business. But Walt (and 1 to 1 Media makes this point well) is right: once they are in your business, if you give them a fantastic experience, it won't matter one bit what brought them there: they will come back and spread the word.

Unlike sites like Groupon or Living Social, we have the benefit of not having deal seekers as our customers (primarily, they are subscribers to news, entertainment, or sports media consumers), but this should be an excellent goal for all businesses who want to try a Daily Deal:

• Ensure the employees look at these customers as future best customers: welcome them, congratulate them on the deal, and make a point of highlighting your business.
• Assume each customer who comes in will be telling 3 of their friends what the experience was. What do you want them to say?
  • As 1 to 1 Media points out, with social media, whatever they say will be shared with everyone.
• Assume you had two customers who walked in the door: one you could pay $1, and have a 20% chance of coming back to you in the next 30 days; the other you don't pay anything but you have no idea what % chance you have. 
  • Would you pay that $1 to improve your odds? 
  • What if you could triple those odds by providing a memorable experience? Wouldn't you?

So what does this mean? 1 to 1 provides this summary:

• Customer experience leaders have almost 13 percent more customers that are likely to recommend them than customer experience laggards.
• Customer experience leaders have almost 11 percent more customers willing to buy more products from them than customer experience laggards.

Daily deals customers are not "bottom feeders," or "bad customers;" they are average people who want a new experience and are willing to put their money behind it. Reward their faith with a great experience, and you will be rewarded with loyal customers, and daily deals have the best potential to create loyal customers to date.

As the Daily Deals phenomenon continues to reshape the world of local retail and dining, people tend to focus on the dazzle of Groupon and Living Social, as they have lots of numbers to wow people. But there is an entire segment that, while not as flashy, is set to make those sites and their ilk a possible thing of the past: local media. Who, you ask? Your newspaper. Your local TV affiliate. Your radio station. The city magazine. The local foodie dining site. The list goes on, but the winning formula is easy to see.

So, what do you need to be a successful Daily Deals destination? 

1. Great local deals, from businesses people know and want to try.
2. A commitment to quality and relevance: put up a deal that doesn't resonate to your audience, and it won't sell, no matter how many e-mail addresses you have.
3. Passionate subscribers who trust you to deliver value and quality.

Groupon and Living Social do well on #1. Living Social does better on #2. #3...jury is still out. Now, look at the same for your local newspaper:

1. Great local deals: these folks have deep connections with the best businesses in the city they are in. In fact, they have those businesses paying them today for the chance that one of their subscribers might change their behavior. Imagine if the newspaper could instead offer the local business a way to guarantee customers and sales, and the merchant never has to pay and only barters with their product. Slam dunk.
2. Commitment to qualitry and relevance: these papers employ editors to ensure just that. On the ads, they carefully balance the ad against the content on the page to ensure relevance. In short, no one better.
3. Passionate subscribers. Have you ever read the op-ed page of your local paper? You don't get more passionate than that.

Look at the above, and substitute "television station" or "radio station" for newspaper. Still works. Each of these industries is uniquely positioned to not only compete with the Living Social's of the world, but own the space entirely. But wait, there's more. What can each of these media companies do that no one else can? Reach customers through existing media channels. They own the space. That's right, they can drive more relevant traffic than Groupon blasting emails to the most unqualified subscribers ever could.

TownHog currently powers the daily deal efforts of many of the media brands you use today, in fact, we are the largest provider of such services. And it looks like more and more are waking up to the opportunity. For reasons I will go into in another post, McClatchy, the third largest newspaper group, has dumped Groupon and is realizing they can do this themselves. They join the media leaders already there, including the San Francisco Chronicle, WABC (flagship station of the ABC Radio Network), Playboy, Cumulus Radio, and CBS Local Offers, as well as others. It's the start of the great media realization, and the consumers and local businesses stand to win, while early deal sites may see some defection.

In any case, it's gonna be a fun ride!

All you ever needed to fully enjoy your city is now at your finger tips.

TownHog’s iPhone app not only brings the most spectacular deals in town directly to the palm of your hand, but its new version also lets you enjoy them like never before.

The days of lugging around a bulky piece of paper are over. With our new app you no longer have to worry about downloading and printing your vouchers. All you need is your swanky iPhone. To cash in your deals simply pull them up on your phone and show the waiter. You can kiss goodbye to that strange look on your date’s face, or the judgmental stares from the couple sitting at the next table over.  

Going somewhere new? The TownHog app now allows travelers to get the inside scoop in other cities in a matter of seconds. Be amazed by the experiences you will discover in every city for a very convenient price.

iPhone users who are new to TownHog need not to worry. Anyone can get TownHog on their iPhone for free. Once that perfect deal appears, which is always guaranteed, new users can get in on it with our simple registration.

Whether you are new or not to the TownHog iPhone app do not hesitate to get the new and improved version at the iTunes store today.  

We kick off the new year with many a good thing to celebrate.  2010 was full of accomplishments that we could not have met without the support of all our amazing subscribers.

Some highlights worth noting:

• We went international. Oh, Canada...
• We now offer 80 deals per week. That is tons of savings for all of our loyal subscribers, as well as tons of new customers for our merchant partners
• We now have numerous and cherished big media partners through whom we distribute our amazing deals: ABC, CBS, SFChronicle, and yes... even Playboy
• Birth of Gladys, our TownHog mascot
• We went from 3 to 24 cities. Check them out:

• Baltimore
• Boston
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Denver
• Detroit
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• Minneapolis/St. Paul
• New York
• East Bay
• Philadelphia
• Pittsburgh
• Sacramento
• San Francisco
• San Jose
• Seattle
• Vancouver

So here is to you, TownHog subscribers! Thank you for a memorable 2010, and we look forward to more success in 2011.

"The benefits of promoting on TownHog go far beyond what one can see on the daily deals website and the number of coupons sold. The number of people visiting our Website went up 6 times on the day we were featured on TownHog!"