PennySaverUSA.com Blog – The Best Resource for Online Classifieds, Coupons, and Online Contests!

The Largest Direct Mail Shopping Publication in the U.S. Continues to be Invaluable Resource for Local Businesses and Shoppers

BREA, CA (MARCH 19, 2012) – The Original PennySaver^TM, a Harte-Hanks (NYSE: HHS) company, is celebrating 50 years of helping people save money in their own neighborhoods. Since its inception in 1962, the iconic company has been the leader in servicing its local communities with classifieds, coupons, and deals for everyday needs. With more than 780 local editions and a reach of more than nine million circulation in California, The Original PennySaver is not only the largest direct mail shopping publication in the U.S., but it is also a brand whose classifieds have helped shape the lives of many.

In addition to its print shopping publications, The Original PennySaver has an impressive Web presence at PennySaverUSA.com and its associated websites. In April 2011, the company launched SaverTime.com, the hyper-localized daily deal site for California residents offering deals on everyday items, with nearly 30 local daily deal offerings.

“For 50 years, The Original PennySaver has been the expert in local classifieds, coupons and savings,” said Loren Dalton, President, Shoppers Digital and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, California Shoppers. “We continue to be an affordable and effective resource for local businesses, and shoppers look forward to the savings offered in our print and online publications each week.”

The Original PennySaver has always been the champion of the little guy, trying to level the playing field for small businesses through print and online classifieds and coupons that are tailored to a specific targeted local community.  Other small business resources from PennySaverUSA include PowerSites^® and PowerClicks^®.  PowerSites are websites built and hosted by PennySaverUSA to give local businesses an instant online presence. PowerClicks lets the pay-per-click advertising be handled by PennySaverUSA so that small businesses can be more readily found by users of major search engines.

“I am very happy with my company’s PowerSite powered by PennySaverUSA, and believe it is the main reason I am getting more and more calls every week,” said Matilde Gutierrez of Matildes Housecleaning in San Diego, California.  “In fact, I have been so busy that I have had to hire an additional staff person to support the business.”

Consumers have also remained loyal to PennySaverUSA advertisers, because they know that the small business offers found in print and online are not only credible, but are also valuable resources in their own communities.

“There are lots of interesting things for sale or even free,” said long-time PennySaverUSA reader Gail Powell of San Diego. “I have found roommates, purchased automobiles, clipped lots of coupons and even found jobs!”

Reading The Original PennySaver weekly is a ritual for many and often evokes nostalgic memories from the past such as buying that first car or finding a family pet.  It’s become so engrained in pop culture that movies such as Juno, books such as It Chooses You by Miranda July, and TV shows such as Saturday Night Live and Two and a Half Men have featured references to The Original PennySaver.

When reflecting on the past and looking toward the future, Dalton said, “Our mission of connecting buyers and sellers at the local level has not, and will not, change. We are grateful to our loyal advertisers, readers, site visitors, mobile users and employees who have been so critical to our success for the past 50 years, and we look forward to an even more exciting future.”

Company Origins

In 1962, Bob DeMarco launched the Huntington Beach PennySaver in California. A showcase for local businesses, customers used to go to DeMarco’s office and wait in line, cash in hand, to place their ads. Demand was so strong, that at his noon deadline at the end of each week, he would have to lock his doors. The Original PennySaver, as we know it today, follows a similar format as the original Huntington Beach PennySaver.

Company Milestones

­1962 –  Bob DeMarco launches the Huntington Beach PennySaver in California.

1973 – Harte-Hanks, a worldwide direct and targeted marketing company, purchases PennySaver from DeMarco.

1989 –  Harte-Hanks-owned PennySaver Group boasts a California shopper circulation of 3.3 million.

1996 – PennySaver launches its online presence with PennySaverUSA.com.

1997 – Harte-Hanks acquires the Vista-based PennySaver publication from ABC Inc., a subsidiary of Walt Disney Co.

2003 – PennySaverUSA breaks the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Temporary Coin Mural.

2004 – PennySaverUSA receives the Better Business Bureau Torch award in recognition of outstanding ethical business practices and commitment to service within the San Diego community.

2004 – PennySaverUSA breaks the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Permanent Coin Mural.

2005 – PennySaverUSA breaks the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Piggy Bank.

2008 – PennySaverUSA launches PowerSites product to help local businesses launch websites and connect with customers on the Internet.

2010 – PennySaverUSA launches PowerClicks product to help local businesses get found on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!.

2011 – PennySaverUSA launches SaverTime.com, a hyper localized daily deal site in California that offers savings on everyday expenses.

2011 –​   PennySaverUSA debuts two apps for iPhone and Android.  MOGASA helps users navigate the garage sale landscape with thousands of nationwide garage sale listings and Cha-Ching is a local coupon-finding app for those who enjoy scoring discounts and living large on less.

2012 – PennySaverUSA boasts more than 780 local editions and a reach of more than nine million circulation in California.

- more –

ABOUT THE ORIGINAL PENNYSAVER^TM:

PennySaverUSA.com™ and its Florida-based sister publication, TheFlyer.com™ are leading single print publications. The two publications reach over 11.2 million U.S. addresses every week. For fifty years, the PennySaver has helped businesses in California advertise to local communities while connecting buyers and sellers through local classifieds. Known as PennySaverUSA.com online, readers are enjoying the same local values as the publication has been trusted to deliver for decades. On the web, PennySaverUSA.com and TheFlyer.com are advertising portals bringing users local online classifieds, business listings, online coupons, and a range of business products and services like PowerSites™ that help small and medium size businesses build websites and establish a web presence to improve lead generation. For more information, visit us online at http://www.pennysaverusa.com or http://www.theflyer.com.

ABOUT HARTE-HANKS:

Harte-Hanks, Inc. (NYSE: HHS) is a worldwide direct and targeted marketing company that provides marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers.  Visit the Harte-Hanks^® Web site at http://www.harte-hanks.com or call (800) 456-9748.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Karyn Ravin

Maletzky Media for PennySaverUSA

karyn@maletzkymedia.com

212-829-0150

PennySaverUSA.com’s 50^th birthday is no laughing matter! Not every company is able to hit its Silver Anniversary and we are very proud of this accomplishment.

This is the cover for one of 780 local editions PennySaverUSA prints every week.

So, too, it turns out is the Orange County Register.

The newspaper saluted us on our big accomplishment with a fantastic article about our history.

Some interesting historical notes about the Original PennySaver mentioned in the article that you may not have known:

• Part of our company was once owned by Disney
• PennySaver started in Huntington Beach
• Bob DeMarco was the founder of the PennySaver
• The print publication reaches 11.2 million households every week
• The company moved its headquarters to Brea, CA in 1981 (coincidentally the same year the author of this blog post and PennySaverUSA staffer Jason was born).

You can read the entire article here.

Here at PennySaverUSA.com we take our mission of providing “The Best LOCAL Values in Print and Online” very seriously.

While we are very proud of all the work we do online here at PennySaverUSA.com, our weekly print publication remains an essential part of our ability to accomplish our mission.

The process of getting those values from the printing press to your doorstep is quite impressive. It takes a lot of dedicated employees and hard work to stuff your weekly PennySaver with spectacular values and get them delivered to your mailbox each Tuesday or Wednesday.

Good Day Sacramento did a great job of spotlighting this process in a recent segment as you can see in the video by clicking here.

Grandparents Day is coming up soon (Sept. 11) and PennySaverUSA has come up with a creative way to say thanks to that special grandparent in your life.

By following and tweeting @PennySaverUSA with the hashtag #pennyshout, you can have your free message printed in the local PennySaver.

The one key thing to remember is to include the zip code in your tweet, so we know which PennySaver publication in which to print the message.

That’s not the only way to get a free message printed in the PennySaver for your grandparents, however. If you happen to not have a Twitter account, you can also If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can also send in your free message the old fashioned way through the phone or fax.

The number to call is (800) 995-3333 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (800) 995-3333 end_of_the_skype_highlighting and the fax is (760) 599-1505.

The deadline to get in your free Father’s Day message is Thursday, Sept. 1.

As for gift ideas for your grandparents, look no further than PennySaverUSA.com and SaverTime.com.

Our online classifieds feature a number of exceptional items that your grandparents would surely love, while SaverTime.com provides up to 90% off good and services that would be great for your grandparents.

If you don’t have Twitter or a phone, please leave your #pennyshout in the blog comments and we will make sure it gets included.

In this edition of Make Money Monday, our weekly blog about what it takes to find work in this tough marketplace, we focus on the jobs currently available with us here at PennySaverUSA!

There are a variety of openings with PennySaverUSA throughout Southern California, Northern California and Florida and we would love if you could find work with us.

Find work with PennySaverUSA.

A vast majority of the openings are in sales, so if you have any expertise in that area, please don’t hesitate to apply. All told, 25 different offices have opening in sales, and seven of those are new positions.

Don’t worry, though, if sales aren’t your thing, there are still several other openings, so your hopes to find work with PennySaverUSA aren’t dashed.

Several offices, including Mira Loma, CA; Vista, CA; Rancho Cordova, CA and Tampa, FL; have openings in production.

Perhaps the best location for which to find work at PennySaverUSA is in Brea, CA. That office not only has sales and production openings, but web and admin positions are also available.

We want everyone who wants a job to be able to find work. Please leave us a comment if you are interested in any of the vacant positions with PennySaverUSA. And don’t forget to check out our jobs listings for thousands of openings with other companies from around the country.

This is a very exciting time for PennySaverUSA.com. Things are happening at a furious pace and we have a ton of news to share with you about our online classifieds developments.

You can now place and view ads on the PennySaverUSA Facebook page.

We recently put functionality on the PennySaverUSA Facebook page that allows you to place an ad right from Facebook. Today, we took our online classifieds to even a higher level: You can now also see listings right from our Facebook page.

If you haven’t “Liked” us on Facebook yet … what are you waiting for?

Another awesome development in the online classifieds category is the creation of our new mobile app for garage sales called MOGASA. We highlighted the app’s features last week, but now we have another big announcement.

In addition to MOGASA’s “Join the Hunt” contest in which you can win up to $350 as a team or $150 as an individual, the MOGASA staff is holding its own garage sale in Anaheim, CA. All the proceeds we make from the sale will to Charity Water, an organization that gives clean water to those in need.

A smaller, yet important notification nonetheless, is that we have added a new dog breed to our place an ad online classifieds feature. You can now place an ad for King Cane Corso dogs.

Calling all garage and yard sale enthusiasts. PennySaverUSA.com has a big announcement! We have created a FREE new mobile app called MOGASA that allows you to find, post and even review local garage sales and yard sales in your area.

Download MOGASA, PennySaverUSA's new garage sale mobile app.

To go along with MOGASA’s launch, we are holding an online contest. By entering the “Join the Hunt” online contest, you will be eligible for a chance to win a cash prize! If you sign up as an individual, you have an opportunity to win $150, while team entries have a shot at emerging with $350.

On the weekend of Aug. 13, 2011, garage sale treasure hunters will compete to win by finding all the garage sale items on a scavenger hunt-style list.

The individual and team to find all items in the shortest amount of time within the 48-hour contest time period wins!

Among the many MOGASA features are simple search options, custom treasure trails, a check-in button and much more. Watch the how-to video to learn more about using MOGASA.

MOGASA’s mission is to be the ultimate application in your garage sale treasure-hunting tool belt. With custom treasure trails, garage sale ratings and reviews, and adventure sharing features, it’s never been easier to uncover unbelievable bargains right in your backyard.

We’re very excited about our new garage sales and yard sales app and hope you download it today for the iPhone or Android. Please let us know what you think of it in the comments.