Half-price green fees at local golf courses.
Cut-rate prices on massage therapy and beauty salon manicures.
And skookum deals on restaurant meals and gate fees for world-famous tourist attractions.
All these and more from local merchants and area businesses are coming to the The Citizen in the new weekly DealMate.ca online couponing feature about to be launched on Thursday, July 28.
Readers who sign up for the program will receive the weekly coupons by email and if they decide they want them, they will click on the link and use a credit card to pay the featured business up front. The coupons can then be printed from any computer.
"If they decide they want that deal, they pay for it up front, so the incentive to come and use that coupon is that much greater," said Anna Westgate, the Citizen's digital media sales consultant.
"Now you have an opportunity to build a longterm relationship with a new client, so the cost of advertising is minimal."
DealMate.ca was introduced to Kamloops on June 1st through the Citizen's sister paper, the Daily News, and has been well-received by readers in the Thompson-Okanagan area. There are also DealMate.ca coupons available online in Whistler and Squamish.
"The deals are different every week," said Shenaz Bedi, digital account specialist for Glacier Media. "It's meant to offer 50 to 90 per cent off deals to businesses in Prince George as a way to get new customers. It's a weekly deal, so it gives people lots of time to make their purchases. Right now we're in the midst of launching B.C., and we're hoping it will take off and be there forever.
"We're kind of focusing on things to do in Prince George, restaurants, health and beauty -- the kinds of things that most people are already doing or would do, with a discount. Our first deal will be a golf deal."
Barkerville will be one of the featured attractions later this summer. As part of an province-wide early sign-up incentive, James Douglas, Barkerville's manager of visitor experiences and public relations, won Glacier's draw to receive an iPad 2.
"We'll be doing a DealMate deal at some point in the summer and I think it's an innovative way of driving some traffic toward us,"said Douglas. "It's a way to get people familiar with Barkerville again. A lot of people have been a number of times and we have a great repeat audience but we have a number of new people coming to Prince George and there are people who haven't been for years.
"Obviously it was an awesome experience clicking on one of the banner ads on the Citizen website and signing up for DealMate. I was motivated by the fact an iPad was offered, but I honestly didn't expect to win it."
According to Citizen publisher Hugh Nicholson: "DealMate is just another way to provide our advertisers an opportunity to interact with our readers. It's a classic win-win situation."
