The Client: The Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex is a 28-acre sports village built on four historic piers along the Hudson River in Manhattan. Their target audience is young people, families, and parents who live in the Chelsea neighborhood.

The Challenge: Chelsea Piers had run local promotions such as free one-week passes, as well as extremely localized advertising. No matter what method they tried, they were rarely able to measure results. When they did, those results were often disappointing, with few repeat customers. When Groupon contacted them about featuring a promotion on their website, Chelsea Piers was intrigued by Groupon’s innovative model. When they saw that Groupon subscribers would be paying to participate in the deal, they realized that this would do the hard work of qualifying their customers beforehand. Chelsea Piers immediately jumped on board.

The Deal: After consulting with an experienced Groupon sales representative, Chelsea Piers decided to run a two-week trial promotion for their fitness facility. When that proved successful, they expanded to a series of promotions over several days that included beginner golf lessons, bowling, and indoor ice-skating. All of the offers were significantly discounted with the goal of introducing New Yorkers to the wide range of activities Chelsea Piers had to offer.

The Results: The promotions had an extremely positive impact on the client’s business. The number of Groupons sold greatly exceeded Chelsea Piers’ expectations, reaching a markedly different demographic from their past marketing efforts. Best of all, the results were measurable. Groupon respondents proved to be motivated customers, and many of them upgraded their services to longer contracts or larger packages. Chelsea Piers had a fun, easy time creating their first Groupon deals and looks forward to creating more in the future.

The Proof: Chelsea Piers has worked with Groupon five additional times since their first feature, selling more than 2,000 Groupons total