TBSeen.com:
“We wanted to create a world of smart shopping. Gaining money back on the stuff you’re buying is pretty much our mantra”.
At a Gorkana media briefing, the core team from new smart shopping and lifestyle platform TBseen.com, including editor-in-chief Kate Thornton, shared their thoughts on what PRs could do to help “work in a smart way” for its audience, writes Gorkana’s Ben Spencer.
With watching rates surpassing industry standards, according to the team, TBSeen.com’s smart shopping and lifestyle platform, which is designed for women, spans a wide range of savvy shopping subjects.
Content ranges from cashback, money-saving deals and how-to guides to videos featuring Thornton and her circle of celebrity friends, including Nicole Appleton, Myleene Klass, Tamzin Outhwaite, Lisa Faulkner, Denise Van Outen and Heidi Range.
At the briefing this week, Thornton, alongside editor Hannah Verdier and MD Rob Watt, talked about creating the “no brainer” platform, and identified five key things PRs should know about TBSeen.com:
Content and Celebrity Bloggers
TBseen.com has a five-strong editorial team, who cover style and beauty, food and drink, fitness and travel. Additional content is also provided by the site’s “proactive” celebrity bloggers, who specialise in various sectors – from weddings to room renovating.
“Our content is underpinned by three principles”, says Verdier. “Saving money, saving time, and entertaining readers.
Readers and Engagement
TBSeen.com’s audience is 80% female, aged 25 to 54 and is relatively affluent. Content lends itself to readers who are either in “shopping mode” or in the mood for “consuming content”, says Watt. “It’s not one size fits all.”
User experience
“I don’t want 4000 brands, I want the best brands”, says Thornton. “I want the best deals, explained to me in a clear and simple way.”
Pitching to the team:
“Send us your press releases, our doors are open”, says Verdier. “We are always looking for those new products and things that we haven’t been seen before…Emails are brilliant and the only attachments should be pictures.”
Thornton added: “We ask ‘what does the user gain from this?’ If they don’t gain from it; then it’s a no go. It could be a brilliant voucher code, a curated flash sale or an increased rate of cashback. Ideally, it’s all three of those things.
“We like to stack deal upon deal so that when the user clicks the checkout button there is no way that they could have made a smarter decision. We want to find brands and PRs that want to help us achieve that.”
The Future
When asked what form she thought Tbseen.com’s content would take in the future, Thornton replied: “Growing and scaling-up from where we are right now. Now we’re in the market, we’re listening and we’re learning. We listen, watch, observe and tweak our acts accordingly. So my ambition is to carry on doing that, and I think if we listen to the users, we won’t go far wrong.”
Agency and in-house comms professionals turned out for the briefing, which was described as “fantastic”, “entertaining and “a great morning” by the Gorkana community.
Emma Unwin, senior account executive at Threepipe, said: “Gorkana’s TBSeen.com event was extremely insightful. It’s great to see a start-up website reacting to consumer demand for an informative and entertaining service by intrinsically linking content with commerce.
“Working with sites such as TBSeen.com will give agencies an opportunity to think outside the box when considering how they can further promote their brand or product in a more engaging and relatable manner.”