How Does Groupon Work? Utilizing Flash Marketing to Grow Your Business

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Utilizing Flash Marketing for SEO How Does Groupon Work?

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Ever wonder how Groupon really works? Can your business actually benefit from flash marketing sites like Living Social and Groupon? Is there any SEO benefit to running on a daily deal site? Learn more about the history of these group buying sites, how you can better utilize daily deal sites, what to watch out for when running a deal and key takeaways to help grow your business. In the end, its all about three things: Customer Retention Rates, Up-Selling the Customer Throughout the Buying Process and Improving the Lifetime Value of a Consumer. Background: I helped launch four different companies on over 50 different daily deal sites, becoming one of the first "evergreen" accounts on both Groupon and Living Social.

Transcript of How Does Groupon Work? Utilizing Flash Marketing to Grow Your Business

Page 1: How Does Groupon Work? Utilizing Flash Marketing to Grow Your Business

Utilizing Flash Marketing for SEO

How Does Groupon Work?

Page 2: How Does Groupon Work? Utilizing Flash Marketing to Grow Your Business

© 2014 SEER Interactive | All Rights Reserved page 2page 2

Background on Daily Deal/Flash Sites

• Two Initial Strategies:– Flash Sites – limited availability (lack of

time & lack of service/product/merchandise)• Two days only or 100 dresses maximum

– Group Buying Sites – minimum purchasers for deal to go through and price to pass. • 200 people must buy for $40 price, 300 = $35

• In the past two years - shift towards a flash combination.

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History of Daily Deal Sites 2010

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Early History of Daily Deal Sites

• Gilt Groupe was the first daily deal site founded

• Followed by Living Social (2007) & Groupon (2008)

• Currently: – Groupon owns 50% market share, LS owns 25%– 33% of daily deal sites closed in 2011-2012. – 798 in the Q3 & Q4 of 2011-2012 alone. – CPC Value Jumps - $8 (’10) to $23 (‘12).

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How Does it Work?

• Consumer gives Groupon an email, city & age/gender

• Receives emails with offers for services/products

• Groupon gets a commission & merchant gets last portion of the sale along with new customers.

• Example: Pair of Jeans - $100 retail– Sold @ 50% discount – User pays Groupon $50– Of $50 (you keep 40%) - $20 = 80% discount

• Issue: Businesses can’t handle influx from a Groupon and decide not to continue or go out of business.

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How to Benefit from Daily Deals

• Barter for your cut, payment details, CC fees.• Take control of the scheduling• Provide upsell incentives (belt for those pants)• Set Goal Targets and stick to them

– Max vouchers used, price, combinations with discounts

• Train your client to handle the expected influx• Help retarget customers & build a brand

– Require emails, facebook likes, tweets– Build a social & connected community– Restaurant Survey – Online Discounts– Retarget, Retarget, Retarget – Email marketing,

social, etc

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How Flash Sites Can Compete in 2014

• Serve a niche market and stick to it.

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Think of unique ways to feature clients

• Online Gaming Niche?

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Think of unique ways to feature clients

• Selling online goods (cards, stickers, utilities, etc)

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Think of unique ways to feature clients

• Send version 1.0 to Groupon Goods to prep for 2.0

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Think of unique ways to feature clients

• Team up with other programs!

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Utilize Sites for Grassroots Campaigns

• Living Social ran its first non-profit campaign in 2011 to support the Red Cross in Japan - $2million in donations

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Target Audience for Linking Opportunities

• 2,800 backlinks to this grassroots page.– Download the full

list then perform outreach

– 3.6K backlinks at its peak

• Team up client with a charity or non-profit

• Groupon keeps 0%

• Reach out to those organizations and show a new fundraiser.

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Groupon Gives Too!

• Groupon’s “Big Give” push occurs in late November.

• Both local and national - team up with local charity

• For every $5 donation, we’ll match with our own company.

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Benefits to Daily Deals

• Potential natural link building opportunities– Unlinked mentions can be targeted too.

• Local targeted keywords as well as national– Run in 40 different cities – “jeans in scottsdale”

• GoogleOffers growing steadily (new opp)• Increased referral/direct traffic to site• Ability to re-target new customers afterwards• Increased brand awareness and recognition

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Search Benefits to Daily Deals

• Traffic from Groupon vs. Organic Traffic Study

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Watch Out For….

• Increased traffic which overloads your servers– Downtime onsite which leads to poor UX.

• Difficult Customers – Once they get a deal, customers are

usually not willing to pay more.

• How to retarget customers and increase LTV– This is the key to successful campaigns –

learn how to retarget and bring back those consumers.

• Late Redemptions– Customers forget about deals and want to

redeem late. Draft a plan early to prepare for this.

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Key Takeaways

• Craft a strategy that would work for the client

• Find products/services you can discount• Help clients brand strategy • Provide them with pros & cons – help

execute across multiple teams

• Interesting Personal Stats– – 41% of our daily deal coupons went

unredeemed– 58.23% of our customers engaged in upsell

• With an average upsell value of $44.82

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Questions?