Juice in the City Makes San Mateo its Corporate Home

As anyone knows, when moms rally, they make change, and JuiceintheCity.com just might have that dialed in better than ever.

It’s all the buzz these days – chatter from businesses who are seeing a new faction of loyal clients patronizing their businesses and more than 300 moms across the country who are making side money while tending to their primary job as stay-at-home moms.

Much like Groupon or Living Social, JITC is a consumer deal website that boasts countless members who receive a daily deal e-mail with which they buy at a discounted price and use within a designated time frame. But what makes JITC unique is its give-back business plan that spurs local commerce while employing local moms.

And moms in San Mateo should take notice – Juice in the City originated in a tiny office at the corner of Ninth and B streets and has chosen to make San Mateo its home by recently moving into larger offices on Bovet Road.

“We love San Mateo because of the ability to walk down the street to grab just about anything we need,” said Juice Co-Founder and Menlo Park mother-of-two Sarah Eisner. “The local business owners have been so warm.”

Such is the case with Kathy MacDonald of Kathy’s Kreative Kakes on South B Street in San Mateo. Eisner remembers buying her first delectable cake from Kathy’s through a Juice daily deal more than a year ago.

“Since then I have been back for at least 20 more cakes – they’re incredible!” Eisner points out that being new to the city at the time, if it weren’t for the JITC deal, she might not have been pointed in the direction of Kathy’s Kreative Kakes, a business she frequents regularly.

Here’s how it works:

A local mom is hired to be a Local Business Consultant, an LBC or “Juice Mom.” The Juice Mom then targets a business, uses its service or buys its product and then endorses that particular business if their experience was satisfactory. The juice mom brokers a deal for Juice members and then attaches her opinion of the business with the deal. With that, members can buy with a click and receive that same good experience at a discount – a virtual win-win for businesses and moms alike.

But there’s one additional mom-pull, and that’s in the advertising. You won’t see any large JITC ads near the Google masthead or on outside billboards. JITC helps local influencers, mom-bloggers, thrive and survive by paying them to advertise. What better to target the market?

“We do all our marketing utilizing mom-bloggers that way we put money into local moms who write blogs, this is the other aspect of our business model,” said Eisner. “We have laser target focus of members and that way we get members that make good clients, 40 percent of our members are purchasers.”

With JITC’s Groupmom Fund, the company hopes to flood $3 million into the two things that make their business so unique.

“We will be spending $3 million to support local business stimulation and local bloggers in the next year, according to our estimations,” said Eisner. “We are putting micro-grants into the community – putting money into local business and then moms who frequent those businesses.”

Basically, $3 million will be the amount split between Juice Moms in compensation and local bloggers for the cost of advertising, Eisner said.

Fittingly, JITC launched on Mother’s Day in 2010. In its first year, JITC has 17 markets up and running, all of which remain hyper-local. By next year, through a smart growth plan, JITC hopes to be in 100 markets by next Mother’s Day, employing more than 2,000 juice moms.

“It’s going to be a crazy year, but we know what we need to do and we have this great tight team, everyone shares the passion for helping local economies, supporting other moms and showcasing great deals.”

To receive deals or become a juice mom, here's their local link.