It’s been fun working on the social commerce site CommunityFootsteps.com these last couple months. Since the launch in January, we’ve seen quite a few great deals from local businesses go through the site: massages, gym memberships, restaurant discounts, gardening supplies, salon services and much more. In fact, I just recently ran into a local community member who purchased three deals on the site so far. The word is getting out!

CommunityFootsteps.com is our latest experiment in the “flash deals” arena and we’re pretty excited by the response we’re getting from the community.

Here are some quick stats for the last couple months:

• 1,753 visits and 1,054 unique visitors to CommunityFootsteps.com
• Visitors to the site looked at an average of 3 different pages each visit – this accounted for 5,087 total pageviews
• Weekly emails highlighting the marketplace’s newest deals had an average 26-28 percent open rate 

And big news for April! We’re going to be using a 20,000+ Roaring Fork Valley email list for our weekly E-blast – this is going to be a huge kick-off for the month and we expect a huge increase in traffic to the site. In addition, we’re teaming with the Carbondale Community School’s Artist Tour in May and opening a new online store – this means more traffic to CommunityFootsteps.com!

We’re very excited for the coming months! Check back for updates on the Community Footsteps marketplace.

Footsteps Marketing will be launching the CommunityFootsteps.com next week on January 12th.  This community marketplace will be one of the first of its kind in the independent retailer community.  The goal of the marketplace is to link local businesses, restaurants and the retailers into one market area.  The market will encourage “Buy Local!”  In addition to the value to the customer and the increased market awareness of the business, up to 14% of the sales generated will be sent along to local non-profits.  Each month a local non-profit will be the primary beneficiary of the sales and will receive 8% of all sales. The month of January will be hosted by Lift-UP, a Roaring Fork Valley service organization providing humanitarian assistance to household in need.

Community Footsteps will also partner with all region Chambers of Commerce, community radio station,  KDNK to promote the site and all of the participating business.

This is just the beginning of moving our clients into the social commerce, “flash deals” arena.  We hope to utilize the system to help retailers use all Social Media channels to increase sales, increase “top of mind” awareness and bring both new and loyal customers into their businesses.  It is very exciting, and rewarding, to get an entire community behind an idea.  Stay tuned….

Patrick Curry

January 5th, 2012