Adotas

Where media buyers start online

Featured Author

Adotas Senior Editor Brian LaRue has been working in journalism in some form or another for slightly longer than his entire adult life, having won his first SPJ (Society of Professional Journalists) Award while he was still in high school. Prior to joining Adotas, he served as a reporter, editor, columnist, critic and blogger, mostly for a number of daily and weekly newspapers scattered around his native Connecticut. In his off hours, Brian maintains an active parallel life as a musician and music blogger.

More articles by Brian LaRue





Features

Case Study: Using Flash Sales Sites as a Marketing Tool

Written on
Nov 10, 2011 
Author
Brian LaRue  |
Share
Case Study: Using Flash Sales Sites as a Marketing Tool

ADOTAS – Gilt Groupe may have given online flash sales sites widespread notoriety, but now a whole ecosystem of similar, niche-based sites has cropped up. While these may seem like merely deep discount sites for consumers, they can also be marketing tools for online businesses seeking greater exposure. Take, for example, the case study below, in which GEIGERRIG, manufacturer of hydration packs for athletes and outdoors enthusiasts, used flash sales site The Clymb to land on the radar of major outdoor equipment depot REI.

About The Clymb

The Clymb takes tremendous pride in its outdoor industry expertise and knows that its half-million-plus members value the effort the team takes to hand select every item that is put up for sale; it’s what makes The Clymb different from the multitude of other flash sales sites crowding the market today.

Today, over 150 premium brands consider The Clymb a marketing partner that increases their brand’s value, versus an “online warehouse” to offload overstock or picked over merchandise from four seasons ago and ultimately depreciates the brand.

This is because The Clymb’s model is unique:

  • Prices are not subject to online price search indexing to prevent brand equity erosion that forces brick-and-mortar stores to reduce their prices.
  • Sales are limited to one-time only, 72-hour windows so shoppers know to jump on the deal.
  • Because it is members-only, brands target a very niche audience of outdoor enthusiasts that are tuned into these sales like hawks.
  • Sales spotlight products/brands, versus ad space in publications with equal readership that can easily be glazed over.

For the sales, The Clymb uses brand-approved marketing assets, imagery and messaging when they host these brand events that put the spotlight on only a select few at a time (less competition for mindshare).

The Clymb is also the destination for products that are both in-season and newly launched – in addition to leveraging key partnerships with established brands, The Clymb also takes the lead on identifying products that are setting new standards for performance and bringing it to their members.

About GEIGERRIG & The Clymb

GEIGERRIG is a game-changing hydration pack manufacturer based in Utah; its performance-enhancing hydration packs and inline water filters are pressurized so “You’ll Never Suck Again.”

The Clymb identified GEIGERRIG as a cool product that was gaining traction with outdoors enthusiasts and offered to host a brand event.

APPROACH

GEIGERRIG was all too aware of the stigma attached to flash sale sites, but recognized that The Clymb was onto something different (with its over 500,000 members), so it agreed to host a brand event on the condition that The Clymb staff test the product themselves and explain why they loved it from a first-hand perspective.

GEIGERRIG didn’t have an inventory problem, per se – people were already purchasing the product – but the company was open to ways to increase its brand exposure without dumping funds into expensive marketing campaigns so as to benefit the overall sales effort of GEIGERRIG’s rapidly growing specialty-retail dealer base.

EXECUTION

The Clymb did just that – putting the GEIGERRIG to the test, the team posted a review to the blog sincerely articulating everything its members loved about the product.

Working with GEIGERRIG, The Clymb team crafted an editorial calendar that showed off its unique technology and deployed that content via Twitter, Facebook and the blog; for five days leading up to the event, The Clymb featured unique content, including video, articles and an interview with Bob Geiger telling the brand’s story.

RESULTS

GEIGERRIG thought that The Clymb did a great job of educating its members about the product, which produced a long-lasting impact on their consumer awareness.

The success of the sale and resulting flood of consumer awareness also caught the attention of retailers who wanted to start carrying GEIGERRIG hydration systems, helping to kick off a surge in new distribution that cleared tens of thousands of GEIGERRIG  products from GEIGERRIG’s warehouses in just weeks.

Shortly following, GEIGERRIG achieved coveted placement with the premier outdoor retailer  REI.

The Clymb estimates that the event reached over one million unique users via social media sharing and email list distribution.

QUOTES

The Clymb

“We work diligently to introduce our members to new, game-changing products. We sought out GEIGERRIG because we were impressed by their innovation. Aware of the stigma surrounding flash sale sites, GEIGERRIG was initially unconvinced, but we proved that we could position their product in the best way possible to a highly targeted audience by having the team personally test the product. After using the gear, we knew it would be extremely relevant to our members so we built a plan to not only move units, but also create lasting consumer awareness and buzz around the brand. The response from our member base was unprecedented.” – Chad White, The Clymb

GEIGERRIG

“Our products have won innovation awards across multiple continents, so we were already very happy with our trajectory and therefore initially unsure what more The Clymb could do for us by hosting a brand event. After taking a closer look, we realized the potential for The Clymb to reach our target audience and loved the expert manner with which they proposed to share the details and benefits of our products. When The Clymb hosted our brand event, sales eclipsed the record for other hydrations packs within the first four hours of the promotion. Ultimately, The Clymb catapulted consumer awareness for our products, providing tremendous marketing value for our company, and has propelled the swelling flood of premier specialty retailers who are now stocking GEIGERRIG products. For us, the promotion was definitely a win-win-win.” – Bob Geiger, Vice President, GEIGERRIG Hydration Packs

 

 





Reader Comments.

I love the points about how private sales are the least hurtful online tool to the brick and mortar establishments. Now to only convince THEM on that would be great

Posted by Tawnee | 6:21 pm on November 10, 2011.

Leave a Comment

Add a comment

Tags: , , , , , , , and
Article Sponsor

More Features


  • Once Facebook goes public, what's the most important thing it'll need to do in order to live up the expectations of its real value?

    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...

Latest News

News Archive

Spotlight

Sponsormob Leads the Way Into RTB for MobileADOTAS – For more than half a decade, Berlin-based tech firm Sponsormob has remained relevant in an industry characterized by [...] more...

Adotas Partnership