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Building Buzz in a Noisy Market

Launching a product or service is no easy feat, especially when you are entering a market that has been shaped by strong, established leaders and become saturated with other emerging players. How do you cut through the noise and differentiate your organization? How do you avoid becoming a “me too” scenario?

We were recently reminded of this challenge as we worked with new client Kudos Community to help promote the launch of its new online coupon platform that delivers risk-free, targeted coupons and offers to consumers to turn online engagement into real-world transactions for businesses. On March 29, 2011, Kudos Community debuted its website in the greater Seattle metro area and was well received by media and key industry analysts.

Nonetheless, we weren’t without stiff competition. Kudos is one of more than 400 daily deal sites currently available to consumers, a growth statistic reported by Entrepreneur magazine in a story entitled, “Which Daily Deal Site is Right for You?” In March 2011, Local Offer Network issued a report stating that the industry will “expand by 138 percent to $2.66B in 2011.” The report also stated that “deal sites are now in 80 markets across the country compared to just 48 in Q1 2010.”  And when evaluating the competition at the local level, we learned of a number of competitors who are based in Seattle including Tippr, Daily Ticket and Ideal Network.

In order to cut through this noise, we took a strategic approach and developed an integrated PR campaign to capture the attention of industry analysts and media, with the following in mind: 

  • Key Messaging: Many of today’s group-buying platforms are simply not business or consumer friendly, nor do they provide a way for consumers or businesses to give back to their local charities or organizations. It was crucial that we developed messaging that clearly articulated the key differentiators of Kudos Community’s platform to businesses, consumers and nonprofits compared to other platforms available in the market. The messages we developed helped us to present a unified and consistent story to analysts and media in the weeks prior to launch as well as crafting the press release to formally introduce Kudos Community.
  • Analyst Relations: Analysts are a critical audience to engage when building credibility for a new company or product. They influence customers, provide validation and endorsement to the media, and create visibility around the category in general. Kudos Community conducted several pre-briefings with prominent industry analysts at Aberdeen Group, Forrester and Gartner to begin fostering relationships and provide an early look at the platform and how the model differs from competitors. As a result, the company was able to secure two references from key analysts to provide commentary to media in support of our outreach efforts at launch.
  • Embargoed Media Briefings: To secure editorial coverage that would appear the week of launch, Communiqué PR targeted journalists and bloggers at top news outlets who closely follow the emerging trend and ongoing news surrounding group-buying sites. Again, the key messaging we developed proved invaluable once again in our discussions with media, who often asked, “What makes Kudos Community different from other sites today?” or who felt as though media was saturated with news on similar group-buying sites.
  • Official Press Release and Buddy Emails: On the day of launch, we sent a buddy email along with the official press release to all of the media we had originally contacted under embargo to draw attention to Kudos Community. We also extended our outreach to include media that covered niche vertical markets such as nonprofit and philanthropy, restaurant and retail outlets. This tactic helped to garner additional media interest in developing a news brief to accompany the press announcement.

Overall, the response our client received from media and analysts was positive. Because of our strategic planning, they were easily able to recognize the greater savings, flexibility and revenue potential Kudos Community offers businesses, consumers and nonprofits.

Thus far, Kudos Community has been featured in the following:

If you’re interested in learning more about Kudos Community or how PR can help effectively launch a new product, even in a noisy environment, send us an e-mail at info@communiquepr.com.