Click the video to watch a CNBC report on our client, Liquidity Services, Inc., secured by Lightspeed PR/M.
Even the most seasoned marketing experts can misjudge how to reach new customers. As the operator of the world’s largest B2B e-commerce marketplace for surplus assets, Liquidity Services is a powerhouse company with over $9 billion of completed transactions. It also boasts a world-class team of marketing and sales experts who have helped the company reach more than 3.8 million registered buyers and 15,000 corporate and government sellers.
But in November 2021, the internal team had a new challenge: launching AllSurplus Deals – Liquidity’s first-ever consumer marketplace. With a goal of 1,000 users per day, their marketing included billboard, television and online advertising in local markets. But, despite that significant investment, they were falling far short of their targets, gaining only about 60 users per day to the marketplace. Entering the crucial holiday season, the team needed a new approach for success.
Rise above the noise of other products
The Lightspeed PR/M had been brought in a few months earlier with the goal of sharing Liquidity Services’ extraordinary story to the media. After successfully placing company leaders in prominent trade publications, and leveraging their thought leadership for industry-related commentary, we knew Liquidity was well-positioned to reach an even broader audience. The launch of AllSurplus Deals presented the PR team with an opportunity to achieve two important goals: first, Lightspeed would leverage the announcement to create increased awareness of the company and its many segments of business; and second, by expanding the local marketing efforts to include earned media, our strategy could reach consumers in a way that other efforts hadn’t.
Starting Local
AllSurplus Deals launched as a new shopping model for local Arizona consumers. Using the company’s online marketplace, Liquidity gave shoppers a new way to bid for returned and surplus items from major retailers. Winning bidders would then pick up their items from Liquidity’s Phoenix warehouse. We knew this was an ideal local story, so we created a PR plan that would make a splash in the Phoenix and Tucson markets, including outreach to local television stations, regional newspapers, websites and college media.
Our team quickly secured two consecutive TV segments: first, the local morning show Arizona’s Family featured an interview with AllSurplus Deals’ consumer marketing manager, Meredith Diggs, and reached an audience of 1.5 million. That story initially resulted in a 444% increase in auction sessions for the day it aired. When the segment was re-broadcast over the weekend, Liquidity’s site sessions saw another 262% increase. Notably, those results marked a 284% increase in weekly sessions over the previous week and 1453% increase in website registrations.
Next, Fox 10 Phoenix ran a feature story on their 10pm news broadcast highlighting interviews with Liquidity Services’ Vice President of Retail, Jeff Rechtzigel, along with two customers who had used the new marketplace. This story reached an audience of over 1.5 million and resulted in a 287% increase in site sessions during the following day.
Continued local success followed and included a feature in the Phoenix Business Journal.
Going Big
With our Phoenix market success, Lightspeed was ready to expand our story – and our reach. Engaging with reporters, we developed interest not only in what AllSurplus Deals was offering consumers, but also the larger company story, highlighting Liquidity’s role in repurposing surplus, returned, and overstocked items.
This narrative quickly gained coverage in WTOP Radio, Washington, DC, a story that was then syndicated across multiple online outlets including US News & World Report. Adding a focus on holiday returns, Lightspeed then secured an article in Financial Times, which featured an interview with Liquidity CEO and Co-Founder Bill Angrick and reached a readership of over 12.7 million readers.
The increased visibility continued to deliver on our dual strategy to benefit both Liquidity and its initiative, AllSurplus Deals, well past the holiday season. For example a local ABC Phoenix-TV that aired in February still resulted in a 228% increase in that day’s site sessions and a 349% increase in the following day’s sessions, along with a 294% increase in website registrations.
Take it National
Meanwhile, our expanded focus on national news caught the attention of CNBC’s Katie Schoolov. Lightspeed took this opportunity to propel both AllSurplus Deals and Liquidity into a national news piece. The CNBC.com story that ran in January 2022 reached over 57 million viewers and was syndicated to numerous additional TV broadcasts, ultimately delivering a total viewership of over 70 million.
With the interest and relationship in place, the Lightspeed team stepped up our efforts with CNBC, pitching a larger story on Liquidity’s business – including its government, industrial, and B2B retail segments, as well as its position as the only publicly traded company in the $644B Liquidation market. Positioned as an “empire” story, the reporter traveled to the company’s Garland, Texas, warehouse to spend a day shooting footage and conducting interviews with CEO Angrick along with other company leaders and employees.
This second CNBC story ran a month after the initial one, garnering nearly 1M views, 15,000+ likes and over one thousand comments in the first few weeks after airing.
A strategy with measurable success
Overall, the Lightspeed PR/M team secured coverage in 59 articles and news programs garnering over 377 million impressions. In addition, interest in Liquidity Services has held steady at a five-year high, while interest in AllSurplus Deals remains at its top levels.
This was a great result highlighting virtually all segments of our business and a wonderful cross section of our people. The live interviews of our team and warehouse footage elevated our stature and showed well. Very pleased we showcased our multi-channel approach (many plugs for our marketplace brands) and our value add to the process with an emphasis on the Circular Economy. We’ll have many nice opportunities to share this out! Thanks to everyone who helped us prepare for and execute the interviews. Well done! – Bill Angrick, CEO and Chairman, Liquidity Services, Inc.
Great job to everyone involved! You can’t watch that without coming away with an impression of Liquidity Services as being the class of the industry. Great representatives, great looking facilities, and a very favorable contrast to the others in the industry that were represented in the piece. Sellers that value professionalism and want to associate themselves with the industry leader will want to talk to us. – JD Daunt, Chief Commerce Officer, Liquidity Services, Inc.
Outstanding! Well done everyone. Thanks for working together to make this happen. The generational impact of what we do expressed by Steven Boykins was heart opening. With complete gratitude. – Anthony Long, VP of Marketing, Liquidity Services, Inc.
What the press say...
Click the publications below to see more of what we have done for Liquidity Services!
