New coupon website has the county Tawkking

Salimeh Evjen has brought an online marketing tool, similar to The Daily Groupon, to Kitsap County. It’s called Tawwk and features 50 to 90 percent discounts for local businesses.

Evjen works with local merchants to come up with a discount for a product or service they’d like to promote.

She then turns it into coupon which she sells like a certificate, taking 50 percent of the proceeds and giving the other half to the business.

About 2,000 people have subscribed to receive e-mail notifications about her certificates, and she also promotes sales through www.tawkk.com, the company’s Website.

“It’s about group buying power,” Evjen said. “The more subscribers, the better advertising (the businesses) can do.”

Some businesses tend to initially loose money on each certificate sold, while others don't, Evjen said.

Businesses with costs that vary by customer tend to make less of a profit on each certificate sold than those with more fixed costs.

So a restaurant would be more likely to take a loss by advertising through Tawkk than a gym.

But, some still see it as worthwhile form of advertisement.

“The (business) gets a ton of exposure, in terms of what it costs them,” Evjen said.

But, she said that she works with her businesses to write coupons that will help them find long-term customers.

“Because I’m at a local level, I care more about the merchants doing well,” she said. “I don’t have the luxury of having thousands of merchants at my disposal.”

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