LowerMyBills.com Reaches Female Consumers Through 100% Online Marketing

THE OFFERING: LowerMyBills.com is a one-stop resource enabling consumers to lower their ongoing monthly expenses and the cost of daily living. Offerings include rate comparison tools for loans, insurance, credit cards, Internet access, telephone, and home utilities; plus tools for selecting local telephone, satellite, and cable will be added shortly.

WEB STRATEGY: CEO Matt Coffin finds the best way to reach women online is through "contextual marketing," that is tapping into those times when women are in a value-seeking mode or thinking about finances. Examples include looking for discount coupons on the Web or during time spent in the women's areas on financial sites.

MARKETING MIX: Currently, all LowerMyBills.com's efforts are focused online. They have placed banners and buttons on various female-oriented sites. Broadcast email has also garnered response rates as high as 4-5%. In solo mailings, using YesMail and MyPoints, "we've gotten as high as 8-9%," says Coffin. "We're selecting these based on both demographics and psycho-graphics."

Other results-producing media placements include ValuePage.com, as a newsletter sponsor. Coffin says he's received a "pretty fantastic response."

Customer referrals help in a big way, too. LowerMyBills.com encourages visitors to spread the word through its Tell-a-Friend page. According to Matt, nine out of the top ten "word-of-mouse" participants are women.

COST: "Our goal is to acquire customers at $50 a piece. We've been testing over the past 60-90 days so we've learned a lot. Eventually, we'll want to push that cost lower," says Coffin.

FUTURE MEDIA: Promotional plans include rolling out traditional broadcast spots over the next few months, although nothing is decided yet. With July print ads in American Baby magazine and other parenting titles, LowerMyBills.com hopes to reach women before they log on with a destination in mind.