PowerTalk

Joining me on PowerTalk this week is Michael Vivio, President of Cox Target Media. Now you may be scratching your head going, what company is that....but as you’ll soon learn, its the company behind that blue Valpak envelope you get each week in the mail. Each and every week, it’s packed with coupons, discounts and other offers that are designed to help you save money, while driving revenue at those establishments. 

Since was named president of Cox Target Media in December 2010. Within a year, Michael has taken Valpak and Valpak.com to new heights with a newly re-launched website that has seen online traffic increase 400%, and new partnerships that doubled the amount of online coupons to 40,000.

I don’t know about you, but at my house we go not only go through it each week, but I use the app on my iPhone religiously and I get to load great deals into Passbook. As I look at it right now, I can see coupons for Gold’s Gym, local dry cleaners, a bunch of restaurants that we go to and a bunch of other services. 

As you’ll learn in a few minutes not only is that emphasis on local is a key differentiator for Valpak, but the company has hundreds if not thousands of companies that it works with each week. Just because its local doesn’t mean its just small business - quite the contrary, Valpak works with businesses of all size to drive revenues by giving consumers the deals they need. 

There’s a growing amount of data that suggests the global economy is headed once again for a Spring swoon. Worse yet, two engines for the domestic economy -- one being the consumer and the other small business -- are coming under pressure. In particular, more Americans have been falling out of the labor force, are on food stamps and have seen their disposable dollars disappear. That’s at the heart of what I call the Cash Strapped Consumer. That said, identifying and dealing with a pain point makes for a great business.

We talk about all of that as well as what sets Valpak apart from the daily-deal group of companies like Living Social, Groupon (GRPN), Google Offers (GOOG) and more. We also talk about how Valpak is gearing up for the push to mobile commerce, which includes not only payments, but also couponing. 

Whether your looking to save more than a few dollars each week, curious as to how Valpak is positioning itself for the future, or why Groupon is on the ropes, those answers are all found in this week’s PowerTalk. 

Direct download: 05-27-13_VALPAKPOWERTALK.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:20am EDT