S01 | E3 –The deal with coupons with Joanie Demer

Jerrid Grimm (00:28.14)

Joni, welcome to the show.

 

Joanie (00:29.912)

Thank you so much for having me, happy to be

 

Jerrid Grimm (00:32.202)

I feel like I am having a celebrity on the show today and that’s because you’ve been on several episodes of like the Today Show and all of these different places. and I’m curious, like your company is called the Crazy Coupon Lady and I’m curious if you are and refer to yourself ever as the Crazy Coupon Lady.

 

Joanie (00:56.814)

The Crazy Coupon Lady was co -founded by two of us and anytime we are asked that question, we just say no, it’s the other one. So I’ll say no, Heather’s the Crazy Coupon Lady and if she were here, she would answer the same. But we both just try to pass the blame to the other

 

Jerrid Grimm (01:12.806)

Yeah, plausible deniability. I love it. Okay, well, let’s, if you could take us back, I want to talk to you a lot about the business of how, you know, coupons and deals work and how, you know, you’ve built this company over time. But if you can take us back to how it all started, I’d love to start with just how this idea came about and how you turned it into an actual business.

 

Joanie (01:15.009)

Exactly.

 

Joanie (01:33.058)

Yep. Well, this part is true and Heather would tell the story the same way that I do, but this was all Heather’s idea. So I met Heather in college. We were roommates. We ended up moving back to her hometown and started families around the same time and continued to be friends and both had a couple of kids and were not working outside of the home for a moment. And we’re living paycheck to paycheck.

 

And Heather came up with this idiotic idea. She had an aunt that was doing something with coupons and she was explaining that we could get things for free. And I immediately said, no, not interested. It doesn’t sound legit or maybe it sounds like a pyramid scheme because I think there was some website she had found that was like 10 bucks a month. But if you referred someone, it was free. just, had all of the red flags for me. I was shopping at a local grocery store called Winco. It was dirt cheap, bag your own groceries. I was buying generic. I was like, I don’t need any of that stuff, but you got nothing for me. But Heather was persistent. She started collecting newspapers, because apparently that was a part of it. And she collected them for five or six weeks and I don’t know, kept after me. And at some point, I guess I agreed. I do remember that first trip going to the store. I was the assistant. Like Heather had the plan.

 

But we had coupons spread out over like a general mills display, you they stack things in the grocery store. We were probably there two and a half hours. I think it was late at night. And she made this plan and we were buying multiples and using coupons. And she’s like, this is how it’s all gonna work. But she wasn’t certain it was going to work. I still was like unhelpful and just unenthusiastic. I remember I was loading things onto the conveyor belt when we got to that point. And I’m like, I’m just gonna run for the door if this goes south.

 

Jerrid Grimm (03:16.212)

Yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna help you to a certain point, but if this goes sideways, I’m there’s a me shaped hole in the wall.

 

Joanie (03:20.055)

This is you.

 

That’s correct, exactly. anyway, I think that I don’t remember how much that trip was, but I know we went back a few times that week and at the end of the week, we had got about $700 worth of stuff for about $100. And I was like, this works. Okay, I’m in, that’s all it needs. Like I’m a skeptic, but then as soon as like it clicks, I’m like, shoot, this is incredible. I was a hobby blogger at the time.

 

I had like four or five mostly idiotic family or nonsense blogs. It was what all the cool kids were doing or maybe not the cool kids. So it was a pretty natural extension for me to start crazy coupon lady dot blogspot .com. All it was was like photographing the items that I had purchased and explaining how I got the deal. I’d already had people reaching out like I heard you could get cereal for 60 cents a box. How do you do it? And I’m like, stop calling me just here. Go here.

 

And so we did that and we started publishing content, but really haphazardly. And then a few months later, I was at the grocery store, saw another woman with coupons. I must’ve been feeling extroverted that day. And I think I started chatting her up and I said, what are you buying? And she said, I see you have coupons too. Did you find out about these from that crazy coupon lady blog? And I lied and said, no, acted like I hadn’t heard of it. And then went home and figured out how to put a counter, traffic counter on the blog. we had, I don’t know, a few hundred people a day or something. And I immediately called Heather and I’m like, who did you tell? Like, you’re the hometown girl here, you know people. And she’s like, I didn’t tell that many people. And so we realized that like this had already sort of started like getting spread very organically. And so we had something and so over the coming weeks and months, it was really a decision to go from something that was purely hobby to being more and more intentional about

 

Joanie (05:18.926)

Creating content, creating it regularly, creating a certain type of content, and then pretty quickly realizing that we kept getting the same questions over and over and over. And we thought, gosh, there’s really no resource where you could send people. Someone needs to write a book. hell, let’s write a book. So we did that and then booked media. And then that was kind of the snowball that just started rolling.

 

Jerrid Grimm (05:39.33)

And did you think, did you think this was going to be a business? Like at what point did it go from, we can get $700 worth of groceries for a hundred bucks and our friends can too. And we’ve kind of like hacked capitalism and to, Hey, this is possibly a business venture.

 

Joanie (05:56.142)

You know, we knew it could be a business pretty early, but I think the aspirations were still very low. Heather and I still joke about a very, like a conversation that we had. And I think we had a couple of affiliate partners. We had a decent understanding of what we could do and we understood our traffic. And I remember I was like, Heather, think we really could do this and be making $700 a month, dramatic pause each.

 

Like, and at the time that was like, that’s meaningful, right? Like just side hustle, 700 bucks, like that’s a big deal. So I think that still, like, even though there was intentionality, I do think we undersold ourselves as far as what was possible. And, and I think the last 15 years has been a lot of, of invention and, know, about growing those affiliate relationships about beginning to receive emails from either elated or angry manufacturers about the fact that sold out a product at a store and they’re either thrilled and want to know if we can do it again or they’re angry because we blew their coupon budget or whatever and then realizing that that’s another opportunity. Let’s harness it. Let’s proactively seek out more of these partners. And so I think it’s just been kind of one step at a time learning the power of the audience that we have and how to talk about and leverage that to our partners and grow the business.

 

Jerrid Grimm (07:12.77)

Yeah. And I think you started this back in like 2009 originally. Is that like right around global financial crisis is going on. imagine, I imagine though the time like saving money, everyone was trying to save money at that point. Like you’re in a recession. That’s probably a key time for there. But it was also, I’m trying to remember, I think you were, you were on the show that maybe it was like based on you, but I’m not even sure. But remember extreme couponing. remember when the sh

 

To me, that’s when it came into like public public consciousness. Like you guys figured this out. You were doing it yourselves. You were telling people about it. But then there was, you know, all of a sudden this became an idea that mainstream people. So tell me about that like moment, because it feels like there were these big moments in the evolution of the company. And that feels like a time. Can you kind of walk us through like when that extreme couponing hype cycle started and what that looked

 

Joanie (08:08.302)

Yeah, the series officially premiered in April of 2011. But the backstory from that is we had published our book. Crazy, anyone can write a book, turns out. We figured out how to do that. We did it. And then we started booking media pretty organically. And so we had done the Today Show. I think it was the second interview I ever did. So really wasn’t qualified, but we pulled it off. And then suddenly we were kind of at the forefront and we did work with Sharp Entertainment, the group that put together that show.

 

I shot the pilot of the show. We worked and met with Sharp Entertainment to conceptualize this show. There was another version that we talked about, if you remember TLC’s like what not to wear with Stacey and Clinton. There was like, there was a couple of different concepts of the show that we discussed. When I shot the pilot, it was actually called Coupon Masters and it hadn’t been picked up from a network yet. So we shot the pilot. Once TLC picked it up, the edit really became more extreme. TLC was famous for hoarders and others and it sort became this fusion of couponing meets hoarders and really like a shock and awe kind of approach to saving money. And so we were invited to participate in the series, but based on the extremity, we really debated, but we’re like, you know, at the end of the day, we’re trying to teach something that’s sustainable for folks. And I’m not sure that this is that.

 

But because we knew everything about the series, even knew who they were picking up, who was going to be in it. We had about four or five months to do a lot of SEO work. And so we optimized the hell out of Crazy Coupon Lady for extreme couponing. We had the right content. And so when that series launched in April, we were poised and rode the top SERP result for the term extreme couponing for years. And so if you looked at our company’s growth curve, you would see that April, 2011. And that’s when we kind we were able to ride that wave of like the people that watched and were entertained by this show and then were curious enough to be like, is this real? They would type in extreme couponing, find crazy coupon lady and hopefully we did a good job of showing that like conceptually it’s real. 98 % savings is like not the standard, but like you can save 50 % legit and here’s how to do

 

Jerrid Grimm (10:21.666)

Yeah, that’s really interesting. There’s like a pro and a con to this when when hype cycles like that will start right? Like it’s everyone’s consciousness knows about but there was some bad parts I remember I was actually talking to my wife about this I was mentioning that I was going to be talking to you she said wasn’t there a thing though where people would have like storage units full of crap basically because they needed to have like 67 of a unit to be able to do it and I said actually I’m gonna ask her about that so that’s interesting it was like the concept of stacking coupons together and getting like significant discounts, that was real. But you’re right, it’s entertainment. So it can’t just be like, hey, someone saved 43 % and had like a really good monthly grocery bill. had to be like someone got 4 ,000 boxes of Cheerios. Like it just has to be to that extreme, right?

 

Joanie (11:06.702)

I mean, we spent a month preparing my shopping haul. Like we had connections into the Safeway store where I lived in Northern California. We were like emailing manufacturers for coupons. Like it was so above and beyond anything that like a normal person would say, hey, that was worth my time. I mean, I saved 97%. Like it was insane. But, I couldn’t have even done that the next week, much less today.

 

Jerrid Grimm (11:37.75)

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There’s like somewhere between that version of the show and someone like me that’s just using whatever coupons are available when I’m like in the store. There’s the reality of what you can do by by using some of these strategies, but it probably brought like a bit of science to this idea. Right. So all of a sudden it became, I can imagine like growth hacker people and like software engineers. They were like all of a sudden interested in this concept that if took multiple deals and did some research on them and stack them together. So have you found that over time, so over the 15 years that you’ve had crazy coupon lady, you and Heather, the behavior of how people use coupons and access deals, like what are the significant changes that have happened over the period? Because you said you were collecting newspapers initially, Heather was collecting newspapers. Like what are the big, big changes that you think have happened over the last 15 years?

 

Joanie (12:36.526)

So let’s talk first about how coupons have changed and then I’ll talk a little bit about how I think shopping behavior has changed. But newspapers really were, that was the bread and butter. And right, you could just buy extra newspapers at the dollar store or at the gas station. And so it was really easy to get like eight of a kind coupon, 12 of a kind coupon. And as long as you’re buying 12 products, you can use 12 coupons. Like there weren’t any limits in place. And so that was really, there were a few printable coupons. So we saw printable coupons grow a lot and newspaper coupons were still there. And then logic would tell you that the next step would have been a digital coupon, right? Like something you scan on your phone. Well, I won’t get all the way into it, but in order for that to happen, the stores would have had to agree to adopt a technology altogether and the stores don’t want to play ball with that. And so that never happened.

 

The technology that came up in lieu of that was rebate apps. So you had Ibotta leading the charge and all of the others that are like it. But the reason those rebate acts exist is because those stores would not play ball. And so we wanted coupons to go digital. Like, come on, why are we still flipping paper? Like, this is silly. And so the rebates came about, it’s still manufacturer funded offers, but instead of being called coupons and instead of saving you money before your purchase, you actually save the money after you purchase.

 

When you uploaded a photo of your receipt. And so that was the evolution. And then I would say the next step was stores consolidating manufacturer offers via their loyalty programs in their app. And that’s the reason stores weren’t playing ball because manufacturer coupons are funded by the manufacturer. That means if I use a dollar off Cheerios coupon at Target, Target is going to get a check from General Mills in the future that says here’s that dollar.

 

Target is not sacrificing anything when I use that dollar, but Target doesn’t like that coupon because that doesn’t build loyalty between me and Target. And so.

 

Jerrid Grimm (14:37.738)

Hmm because you could and that’s because you could use it anywhere like way in that case, right? So so why go back there? I’ll just go to the closest place to

 

Joanie (14:45.57)

There used to even be printable coupons that would say available at Walmart. Everyone was so confused. They’re like, so I have to use this at Walmart? And I’m like, no, that’s Walmart pushing around and saying, put my name on your coupon. I want people to think about me and not just your product. So there was all of this. And so now really what we’ve seen is the CVS app has manufacturer coupons in there. The Walgreens app does, the Target app does.

 

And so that’s where it’s gone. We can talk, I know we’re gonna talk a little bit later about like where things are going, but there are still companies trying to crack this universal coupon thing. And I think we actually might get there in the next year, maybe even this year. So that’s exciting, but it is a funny industry because it’s pretty easy to conceptualize paper and newspaper, paper printable, digital, scan my barcode. And it’s just, it’s never.

 

It’s never happened and now there’s all these manufacturer coupons that people think came from Target and I’m like, that’s not from Target.

 

Jerrid Grimm (15:44.8)

Interesting. Well, I actually knew someone that was in like the coupon business, like the actual coupon business, like making the coupons. And I remembered them telling me, like when you give that paper coupon to the teller cashier, they take that and then they mail it off to some like distribution type center where they’re all like collated and like it’s just people taking pieces of paper, like stapling them together, sending them to manufacturers, receiving paper checks, sending those back insane, right? It seems insane that that’s still happening today. I think that’s still even happening today.

 

Joanie (16:19.85)

It is still happening. that’s why like, manufacturer, like fraud is such a thing because because of all of this, like the way that they’re tabulating and counting and what are they asking from the store as far as receipts to prove that you purchased this? mean, fraud exists from like a like local convenience store claims it got all these coupons that it never really got because it never sold the products. And it’s just trying to get the manufacturer to cut them a check to much, much larger, more enterprise level fraud, fake coupons that the retailer accept.

 

Accepted inadvertently and then expects the manufacturer to fulfill. So that’s the other big thing, at least from the manufacturer who they’re the ones paying the bill for these coupons. They are very, very paranoid and concerned about fraud for good reason. And it is all because like this whole process of, mean, nobody knows like your coupon goes under the drawer and then into an envelope and then off to a clearing house, then counted and tabulated. And then they cut a check. It’s, I don’t even think people realize, I think they just, don’t know if they think about it at

 

Jerrid Grimm (17:05.548)

Yes.

 

Jerrid Grimm (17:18.548)

Yeah. Well, I don’t think people would expect that that’s how it is like today. Right. And actually I let’s stay on kind of this business for a second before I move over to the shopper. Cause I do want to talk about like shopper behavior, but can you walk me through how the business for crazy coupon lady would work in those scenarios? Because I imagine like you’re clipping them out of a newspaper. There’s no affiliate relationship there. You’re just cutting the coupon out.

 

And then bringing it and then maybe you’re telling some people about it and then there’s digital has a little bit more tracking. Like what is the business model of the actual coupon promotion for you guys look like?

 

Joanie (17:55.118)

Yeah. So I mean, early on like crazy coupon ladies, self -funded bootstrapped, we’ve never taken money. We’ve been profitable every year. And early on that was because we were just really micro, was Heather and I, and then eventually a couple of other contractors. And so we could subsist on display ad revenue. And again, we were excited about $700 month. So we were like, yes, this is fine. Today, our business model is about two thirds of our revenue come from direct partnerships with brands. And the other third comes through affiliate networks.

 

Jerrid Grimm (18:12.374)

Yeah.

 

Joanie (18:23.586)

And then there’s a small sliver of the pie that’s display ad and everybody appreciates that, but it’s not one that we’re looking to grow. So the affiliate piece is a mix of commissions and CPAs, but the commission is as simple as, know, I tell you about a Walgreens deal. You can place it online, use your coupons online, pick it up in the parking lot. That’s actually true. Walgreens deals are just crazy how convenient they are these days, because it’s available online, I get a commission. It’s not a big commission, but I get a commission there. Same is true with an Amazon deal. Depending on the category, the commission may be 1%. It might be 6%. Usually getting above that is our team negotiating rates. And so then maybe we’re getting rates like 15 % or more. But so that’s a piece of it. And then the partnerships is the other piece of it.

 

Truthfully, this was not something we proactively sought out and said, I bet we’re driving product off the shelves and we could sell that. We actually had incoming emails that said, hey, I don’t know why I sold out of my product this week. I didn’t do anything different than I’ve done all the other weeks. And when I was searching online to try to figure out what happened, this post on your website came up. And it’s the only thing I can figure out that might’ve influenced this record number of sales. And again, they were either mad,

 

Jerrid Grimm (19:48.512)

Yeah.

 

Joanie (19:48.686)

or happy, the thing is when you’re like Nestle Drumsticks and you’re like, we’re gonna put a dollar off coupon out into the marketplace and based on past redemptions, we expect to get 85 ,000 redemptions and thus we have an $85 ,000 budget for this offer. $85 ,000 out of our $500 ,000 annual budget. Well, if crazy coupon lady happens to find a sale on Nestle Drumsticks the same week that that coupon is out there, we can blast it and show people.

 

Jerrid Grimm (20:04.225)

Right.

 

Joanie (20:16.526)

that look, they’re half off plus the dollar off coupon. If you use those things together, you can actually get these things for 79 % off. And then all of a sudden, a bunch of people print that coupon and use it, then instead of the, what were we talking about? 85 ,000 hypothetical redemptions, you just got 400 ,000. And now you’ve blown your budget for the year. And so that created stress and really,

 

Jerrid Grimm (20:31.65)

85 ,000, yeah.

 

Jerrid Grimm (20:36.322)

Yeah.

 

Joanie (20:41.248)

If they were upset, they were just like, hey, if you’re gonna do this again, can you tell us so that we can plan for it? Because manufacturers don’t like selling out a product. They don’t like empty shelves. And so, you know, that was kind of how it started. And so we had to learn via the evidence shared from those partners that like, look, like people are actually going in and doing these deals because attribution through brick and mortar has been so difficult. Frankly, it still is.

 

Jerrid Grimm (21:06.592)

Yeah. Well, that’s interesting because you’re really saying like, can drive significant demand to a product, whether manufacturer you like it or not. Like we have this huge audience that’s really into it and we can like move markets in a way, right? Or move product. And I think you’re right. What manufacturers and, and brand product owners, what they don’t like is surprises. So if they have a budget and it’s

 

We all think, Hey, you must be so happy. You sold like 10 times more product than you want. And they’re like, well, we didn’t plan. would have had the warehouse be able to fulfill that faster. We don’t want to, there’s nothing that looks worse than like an empty shelf of your product when someone goes in because they’ll try a competitor product and maybe they get stuck. Like there’s a lot. also, Hey, we didn’t want to discount it that much during this period. Our discounting is next season or whatever. So I can imagine that. So did you find then I guess that they started talking to you as you became more and more

 

Powerful in a way of driving demand that they’d want to partner with you in advance to basically like control Where that would go so like when you guys would release a coupon or when you which audience that you’d put it to that’s really interesting and so did that change any of the dynamics as far as Like did you start doing more paid placement type things or flat few things did that start to come about as part of that as

 

Joanie (22:29.198)

Yeah, I think that was the birth of the original rate card. I’d be funny if I could find it, but you know, we, sold the post, the contents of the post and then probably a, Facebook post and like a daily newsletter placement. And we started assigning flat fees to those and putting together pretty basic packages. And, know, of course that has become more sophisticated over the last 15 years, but yeah,

 

That’s really what started it. And it’s the case studies. And I still see case studies sometimes today that I’m like, I read it twice and I’m like, wow, like our partner, like they really, they shut everything off. Every other channel, they shut it all off in order to truly test Crazy Coupon Lady. And they sold, you know, it was their best week all quarter and they sold this much more than they thought. And I still go, really? That’s so cool.

 

Jerrid Grimm (23:18.72)

Yeah. Even though you keep seeing it, right? It’s like every time you have with a rekindling. Yeah.

 

Joanie (23:23.662)

a skeptic, just like I was to Heather in the beginning. I’m a skeptic of what we’re selling too. So the evidence is always, you know, affirming. So it’s

 

Jerrid Grimm (23:31.308)

But what a tool to have in your toolbox if you are a brand or a retailer where you know you have this partner that could turn something on. You know, they have the same, you know, they’re like any other business. They have quarterly goals. They have to meet. They have, you know, they’re publicly traded company and they have to hit revenue goals. Having that as a tool in the toolbox to say, I know that we can drive X amount of sales likely through this partner. mean, that’s something that they wouldn’t have had before other than just doing it through forcing paid media or like buying end caps or like some really expensive things that take a lot of time to get live as well. How quickly when these partnerships start, can you activate? So like, let’s say I’m a brand and I say, hey, listen, we’re coming up to the end of the quarter. We really want to move some product. I’d like to get this out like as fast as possible. I’ve got a great deal for you and I’m going to pay you commission or whatever on top. How quickly can you guys get things moving? Do you find?

 

Joanie (24:26.158)

We pride ourselves on being really, really scrappy. So, I mean, there are cases where we get something live the same week. Our biggest partners usually sign like an annual or at a minimum a quarterly, you know, insertion order. And then we kind of prioritize their stuff and we plan for it and there’s discounts and all of that stuff. So would say that’s the bulk of what we do. But we are also a phenomenal partner. Like it’s the end of the quarter and you’re like, there are 12 days left in the quarter and what can we make happen?

 

We really do try to position our business as a like, we are ready to go. We know how to deal with last minute dollars. We’ll put something together for you. And we’ve had quite a bit of success with

 

Jerrid Grimm (25:06.902)

Very cool. So let’s talk about the shopper behavior. So how have people changed? mean, the business has changed significantly over time and grown. How have people changed their shopping behaviors?

 

Joanie (25:17.612)

You know, I think that couponing is easier. Like there’s always a barrier to entry and there always will be. And anyone who tells you otherwise is full of it because like really we’re asking you to be strategic and intentional. And so there is simply a step before you show up to the store. And so that always exists. And I almost think that the fact that it’s gotten a little easier, like now it’s all on your phone, there’s different apps, is people think they’re doing it when they’re not doing

 

You know, like they’re at Safeway and they’re using the Safeway app and they’re like loading a couple of for you coupons and they’re like, I did it. And I’m like, Hey, awesome. Good job. So what you spent $160 and you saved eight. I like, I have no shame throwing here, but I’m like, but you’re not really doing it. And so the interesting thing is, you know, grocery prices, like record setting in 2022. And of course it’s come down in 23 and 24, but we’re talking this cumulative four year inflation that we haven’t seen in many, many decades. I actually, know, Heather and I talk about it, but like, I believe that crazy coupon lady has not fully capitalized. like, I don’t know what it is that we haven’t got right, but I’m like, I don’t feel like there are enough people turning to this as a strategy to deal with the thing that’s getting all of the media attention.

 

Jerrid Grimm (26:43.072)

Right, right.

 

Joanie (26:44.172)

So, you know, we are now in there, generations of people that are kind of younger than the extreme couponing thing ever was. So whether there is an awareness there or not, I don’t know. But I don’t feel like enough people understand that there is an alternative. And it’s not about saving half off on everything, including cheese and bread and yogurt and whatever.

 

It is like, you know, it’s, there’s balances and there are things that are easier. I’m like, I’ll save you 90 % on your toothpaste and some other things. And then your overall bill is going to do better. But I think that the fad and the excitement around couponing was fleeting. And I just don’t think that that exists in mass as much as it used to. And so I really think that there’s an opportunity on the table and you know, crazy coupon lady is continuing.

 

Jerrid Grimm (27:27.532)

Hmm, interesting.

 

Joanie (27:34.03)

to try to figure out how to best position this practice in a way that it’ll get people to consider it. I say, if Heather had not harped on me and twisted my arm 15 years ago, I never would have touched a coupon. I had all of the reasons not to. There are still people that work for Crazy Coupon Lady that are like, don’t Amazon subscribe and save. I just can’t. Like, I’m not gonna remember to cancel it. I just can’t do it. And I’m like, my gosh, I need to, you know.

 

Jerrid Grimm (28:01.462)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Joanie (28:02.414)

And I actually think I might still be one of them if someone hadn’t really taken the time to like unlock something in my brain. And I do think that that’s a challenge. Our behavior is so habitual. I shop at Costco and so I know how to get deals because everything there is a deal. like Costco is great, but everything there isn’t a deal.

 

Jerrid Grimm (28:20.835)

Yeah. Well, I think people are a little scared of the idea that I’m going to show up at the teller at the cashier and then I’m going to hold up a line for like 20 minutes while I try and like coddle together this like series of coupons, right? So if people just like, you know, do their best, but I actually saw, I think it was a segment that you did on, it might’ve been the today show where inflation over the last four years is, and grocery stores has increased 20 % cumulative. So 20 % across the board.

 

That’s insane because there’s no chance that people’s salaries have increased 20 % over that same time period. Lucky if that’s maybe five or 6%. So how do you negate this inflation? Are you going to buy less food? you like, not really, right? You have, your family’s probably growing. have two boys, they’re like 10 and 13 and they’re consuming twice as much food as they did one year ago. And that’s going to continue.

 

So yeah, I mean, I think what I liked about when I look through crazy coupon lady site is you have this like step by step process where you’re like, here’s the item you’re going to buy and you have a link to it. And then here’s the coupon you’re going to apply. It’s a mobile coupon to me that makes that accessible. I think people are scared of the idea that they’re going to have to like create this Excel spreadsheet and match all this. Like it feels complicated and it feels like I’m going to embarrass myself maybe if I don’t do it right. And I’m in the store doing it. So I think making that accessible and maybe you guys just have to write another book, right?

 

To another book, another TV series.

 

Joanie (29:45.358)

We’re kicking the tires. We’re kicking the tires on that a little bit, trying to figure out how to best reach people for

 

Jerrid Grimm (29:54.53)

Yeah, but I have seen also some e -marketer has this stat where I believe that people using coupons has increased by 30 % since pre -COVID as well. So the idea of like comparison shopping and looking for deals, that’s becoming more more significant over time, not reducing. And so I’m actually curious where you think this is all going. So if we have cost of products are going higher, people are interested in saving money. I mean, that’s kind of like one of those obvious survey questions like would you like to save more money than you currently are? doubt people say no, no, I’d love to spend as much as possible. Right? So you have like this inflation on products. You have maybe it moving a little bit more digital. Like where do you think that this couponing and saving area is going? I mean, you’re very closely tied to it. Your business kind of relies on the future of that. So what are you for seeing?

 

Joanie (30:30.028)

All

 

Joanie (30:46.923)

Well, I mean, we talked a little bit about the coupon technology and what its barriers have been. There is a company and Crazy Coupon Lady is partnering closely with them and we’re rooting for them and they’ve got some exciting things coming, launching at CVS this year. this hope of a universal coupon, of the digital manufacturer coupon that would have made sense a decade ago, but it just never occurred.

 

I think that that technology, well, the technology does exist. The barrier was always retailer adoption. And so I think that they’ve got a drug store playing ball and they’re probably gonna have to tip over one of the big box giants. But once they do that, everyone will be forced to follow. And I hope that this happens because I think it could just give a little bit more momentum, like just a little bit of a fresh, accessible, right? The coupons are going to seem accessible again, the flexibility of planning where you want to shop, I think will bubble back up to the surface. And hopefully it can be loud and disruptive enough to get people out of the thought that all I need is the Target app, walk into the Target store, buy all my products, use the Target coupons and plan to go back next week and do all the same things again.

 

Because the truth, the real difference about what Crazy Coupon Lady is doing is that we’re all about strategizing at the beginning of your trip. And even when you look at the other competitors, like 15 years ago, RetailMeNot was there and they were doing promo codes and now everybody’s doing promo codes and there’s an extension for everything. And the key difference between what those companies do, and I would say, I don’t know what the status, but it’s gotta be like 85 % of the population uses a promo code at some point in the year, much larger subsection than a manufacturer coupon.

 

The difference is by the time you go look for the promo code, you’ve already got the items in your cart. You’ve already made your purchase decision and you’re just like, maybe there’s a 10 % off coupon for all this stuff in my old Navy cart. Crazy Coupon Lady, it flips that on its head and it says you make your purchase decisions based on the sales and the deals. And so that’s also the value prop that we sell to our partners. But the truth is like shoppers who know come to Crazy Coupon Lady, they see what’s on sale and they correlate that to

 

Joanie (33:07.758)

These are the products that my family buys because it’s also tempting to just be a shopaholic and be like, my gosh, I’m gonna get that and that and that and that, but that’s not the way to save money. Here’s what’s on sale this week. Here are the things that are already in my home that I need to buy. Match those up and go buy those things and then do that again next week. And so where you’re shopping, what you’re buying, what brands you’re buying, it’s all flexible and it’s based on the sales. And that is what makes it, and I’m not saving $8 on $160 purchase.

 

I’m saving $70 on $160 purchase. And that is what’s worth the time in my opinion. But there is a pre -planning bit. It is not as heavy a lift as people think, but it’s there.

 

Jerrid Grimm (33:47.05)

Yeah, I mean that. Well, I think that’s the. The misconception around couponing is there’s a lot of brands that won’t work with anyone that’s doing coupons for the specific reason that hey, are you really like adding any incremental buying right? Or are you just catching the last click attribution just before someone put in the cart and they see it’s like someone sees a promo code box. They immediately go and they search for a promo code because that box is there for a reason.

 

Joanie (34:08.567)

Yes.

 

Jerrid Grimm (34:16.042)

I really think this is interesting, this idea, cause I’m like a huge, like home cook, love cooking. And what I tend to do is like, I’ll plan meals. Me and my wife will plan the meals for the week, but we’ll do it. Like I’m not always going to buy flank steak because flank steak can be really expensive sometimes or really cheap sometimes. So we’ll plan like the whole week’s meals out based on what we think is like either in season or has the best deal or anything like that. So I think like people do spend more time.

 

In like creating a good, you don’t just go to the grocery store and then walk down every aisle. Like there’s things you’re going to buy. Everyone has like a shared note somewhere in their iPhone with their partner that like says it. So I think that’s a really cool idea. And probably one of the most more difficult things for you guys to do is to say like, Hey, we’re actually in the discovery point of the purchase funnel, not necessarily like the end of the purchase.

 

Joanie (34:54.327)

Yeah.

 

Joanie (35:09.644)

Yeah, mean, that’s truly, I mean, you’re doing it with your meal planning. And the piece that I would add is like, okay, you’re waiting because we flank steak is on sale at least one week out of every eight. And so you’re planning around that. And I’m like, okay, but what about your toothpaste? You know, like I’m like, you know you could do the same thing for that? And the cool thing about that is of course, there’s sure there’s a shelf life on toothpaste. It’s not particularly short. And so it’s like, great.

 

It’s on sale, can get your name brand $7 tube of toothpaste for 50 cents this weekend. Look, you can buy four of them. So you do that and then you’re like, I don’t think about it for eight more months.

 

Jerrid Grimm (35:43.584)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, I love that. And that’s really interesting for brands as well to think of it that way. Like you can, what crazy coupon lady can do is actually encourage demand for a product at a certain time and get them to pre -plan it where they’re buying multiple of that product, right? Which actually as a competitive standpoint means like, if I have four tubes of Colgate, like I’m not buying toothpaste for another six months. So there is no

 

Why spend money advertising to me for toothpaste? I’m not going to buy more toothpaste next week if I would have four in the bucket or like in my drawer. That’s really cool.

 

Joanie (36:21.666)

But you see brands doing this like on Amazon right now, pretend you wanna go buy Olay body wash on Amazon today. Like when you type that in, you’re gonna see that they’re like top ranking product is like an eight pack of body. Like it’s already, like I think brands are already sort of willing to do that. Like they’re gonna get you to buy this thing and they know, know, Method Soap knows that you’re not gonna be their customer again for a while once you buy this eight pack.

 

But when we talk to our partners, we say like, we can drive new trial and then it’s up to you to hook in that customer because our advice to our shoppers will always be stay flexible, stay open. Everybody has a few brands that like, know, you’re persnickety about your toilet paper brand or whatever it is. Okay, great. You get that, but don’t do that with everything. Stay flexible. But when we pull and we survey our audience, the truth of the matter is a tremendous amount of them talk about the products that they do buy regularly and that the first time they tried

 

Jerrid Grimm (36:55.138)

continue.

 

Joanie (37:20.78)

was because they got a deal. So yes, crazy coupon lady, like our smartest shoppers, they know to be loyal to the deal, but we’re all humans. We all have preferences and sometimes when we find something we really like, we stick with

 

Jerrid Grimm (37:32.546)

Yeah. And how many times now that you’ve been doing this like for 15 years and you didn’t start out as this crazy coupon lady or Heather is whoever we want to defer to in this case, but you still like, I, I’ve seen like your videos where you’re recommending stuff, you’re on TV recommending stuff. So for the audience here, I feel like this is the chance to find out what you think right now might be one of the best deals going that you have on the site. Any thoughts?

 

Joanie (37:40.81)

Mm

 

Joanie (37:56.622)

we have so many deals. I can’t even choose. mean, okay, let me tell you about, we’ve got back to school backpacks right now, like Nike backpacks. I think that’s what it is, right? At the time that Heather got me couponing, was like, I don’t need this. And I’m buying like all brand detergent or whatever. And now for 15 years, I’m like, no, it’s tight or it’s personal or get out of here. Like I’m not like, you know, or it’s something even bougier than that, who knows?

 

Jerrid Grimm (38:21.908)

Yeah.

 

Joanie (38:25.954)

but I’m finding a deal. And so it really is, think that like, so you’ve got kids and you know they want like a name brand, whatever for back to school. And you’re like, I’m having a hard time making ends meet as it is. And I’m having to scrimp on brands or whatever. And I think that Crazy Coupon Lady actually creates a really cool opportunity to get your, those Nike Air Force Ones or that name brand backpack or whatever. So I don’t know. We’ve got some pretty crazy Nike deals on the site right now, but I could go a million different directions.

 

Jerrid Grimm (38:55.138)

Well, I’m going to put a couple of these. I’m going to grab a couple of links from you. I’m going to put them in the show notes and then people can go and get like their back to school shopping because they’ll probably this episode will probably hit in a couple of days. It’ll be just in time. I know my kids are asking for everything for their back to school right now. So thank you so much, Joni, for being on the show. I am so happy to meet you, whether it’s you or Heather. That’s the crazy coupon lady. I love that you just defer it back and forth. Right. And I hope that this universal coupon

 

Joanie (39:02.878)

Amazing.

 

Joanie (39:19.234)

Definitely her.

 

Jerrid Grimm (39:23.71)

Actually happens. I think it would solve a lot of problems for not even as a just the business side But for shoppers everywhere, so thank you so much for being on the

 

Joanie (39:32.088)

Thank you for having me, appreciate

 

Jerrid Grimm (39:36.044)

Perfect, we’re clear. That’s awesome. You’re You’re a pro. Yeah, and we’re right on time there. That’s cool. So I’ll probably get this episode over to the editor. think it’ll be, here, I’m just gonna stop recording.

 

Joanie (39:38.018)

Thanks!