Archive for the ‘local advertising’ Category
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
We recently talked about why we prefer Living Social’s social incentives over Groupon’s, the slowly fading market leader. But is it even possible to predict what this daily deals market landscape will look like a year from now?
While Groupon was the real first-to-market leader, the truth is that Groupon’s retail partners aren’t thrilled with the results they’ve been getting. Not that they haven’t gotten foot traffic from their partnership with the daily deals leader. But, the fact that this traffic isn’t profitable. They usually take a hit on the deal itself, and aren’t retaining this swarm of new customers. Facebook is already discontinuing their deals offering, probably somewhat because their check-in service hasn’t truly taken off yet.
This isn’t to say that Daily Deals are dead in the water. But that they are likely to evolve into a better win-win situation over time. Google Instant‘s move to day-of deal delivery is probably closer to the winning strategy. Limited time offers to increase foot traffic immediately. The deals aren’t extravagant – which means they’re more profitable for the retailer. It’s just a nice little incentive to try a new local retail restaurant nearby, on a day when they’re looking to fill tables.
Groupon deserves credit for creating the formula, and for teaching their competitors some “what not to do” lessons. Unfortunately, they’re probably not going to be the company that reaps the rewards in the long run.
Tags: daily-deals, facebook-deals, google-instant, groupon, living-social, local-business-advertising, mobile-marketing
Posted in Google, facebook, local advertising, mobile-marketing | No Comments »
Monday, September 19th, 2011
Living Social has done it again. Made Groupon look beatable. Similarly to when Living Social offered a $20 for $10 Amazon.com deal earlier this year, they had their next daily deals mass success with last week’s Whole Foods coupon. This $20 for $10 deal sold out, after 1,000,000 individuals took advantage of the offer. Plus, Whole Foods is donating 5% of the sale price to the Whole Food Foundation, aimed at improving children’s nutrition through school and parent programs.
Now, the deal alone may have been enough to cause the sellout. But again, Living Social offers an intrinsic incentive for shareability. You buy the deal. You share the link. 3 of your friends buy the deal. And yours is free.
Groupon offers nothing like this. Did you buy yours?
Tags: amazon.com, daily-deals, groupon, internet-consultant, living-social, local-business-advertising, whole-foods
Posted in Amazon, local advertising | No Comments »
Monday, August 15th, 2011
Oh boy, another daily deals site. (Yawn…) Ok, but here’s the thing. We’re at the very beginning of an industry here. We’re not looking for Groupon-killers. We’re looking for Groupon-helpers. New features or takes on the daily deals game.
And oBaz definitely has a new one. They’re steering away from “local deals” altogether. Realizing that just because you live in a city doesn’t mean that you’re interested in the rainbow array of activities your city has to offer. Rather, you’re into food, music and football. So, you are only alerted/offered daily deals from those categories.
In itself, that’s cool. But there’s more. Because you can align your deal interests to “groups”, oBaz does the haggling for you. In short, they tell GuitarCenter, I have 10,000 people across the country with “guitar” as an interest. What kind of deal do you want to offer these folks?
Tags: daily-deals, groupon, internet-consultant, local-business-advertising, oBaz
Posted in local advertising | No Comments »
Thursday, August 4th, 2011
When LivingSocial came out with their $20 Amazon.com gift certificate for $10 a while back, it officially jumped in as a player within the daily deals game. Especially with the built-in incentive to share deals socially. If 3 of your friends buy the deal, yours is free. This is enormously more enticing than Groupon’s “the deal is on” minimum that need to sign up for it (which they seemingly haven’t fallen short of for months now.)
But if an Amazon gift card made Living Social a daily deals player, what if Amazon itself became one? What? THE online retailer? Yes, that one. AmazonLocal has now expanded, including in Windy City Strategies hometown of Chicago.
But, here’s the problem. It’s not integrated with Amazon’s site yet. People trust Amazon for online purchases more so than any other online retailer. And if Amazon can figure out how to integrate these local deals more elegantly than a daily push e-mail, it’s going to be unstoppable.
Tags: amazonlocal, chicago, daily-deals, groupon, living-social, local-business-advertising, social-media-marketing, windy-city-strategies
Posted in Amazon, Social Media, local advertising | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
Google has just acquired a new company to stake a new claim in the Local Daily Deals war. The Dealmap, is a local daily deals aggregate that started up in May 2010.
Sometimes Google buys companies for patents. Sometimes for people. Sometimes for monopolistic reasons. So, which one is it for The Dealmap?
Well, as you well know, daily deals leader Groupon refused a $6 billion buyout from Google, just last winter. So, perhaps spite? But, in all seriousness, The Dealmap is an aggregate. And so is Google. A finder. And if Google can build off The Dealmap’s infrastructure to help their users find more deals and better deals faster and easier than ever before? Well that sounds like Google, doesn’t it?
Tags: dealmap, Google, groupon, local-business-advertising
Posted in Google, local advertising | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
In a fascinating study from Roost, it turns out that only 15% of fans on the average small business Facebook Page are actually local customers of the business.
There are a wide array of arguments for why exactly that is. Mine would be that there’s probably no real incentive to become a “fan” of your business Facebook page, and that the only ones willing to do it are your friends and family, in an effort to support you. Those family and friends of course, don’t necessarily live in the same town as your local business location.
Of course this is only one humble Web analyst’s opinion. But, as someone who fully believes in the power of social media, it’s not a magic bullet to help your uninteresting business create mass interest.
Tags: facebook-pages, local-business-advertising, roost, social-media-marketing
Posted in Social Media, facebook, local advertising | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
Now that Google has almost a year under its belt with their local rating and reviews feature, they have removed third-party reviews from Google Places altogether. This was probably their plan all along. In order to popularize the service, the site needed to be helpful right away. So, it utilized reviews from Yelp.com and other sites – to much chagrin from these competitors.
But now, they apparently feel comfortable living off their own user’s reviews. They have also added a “write a review” button at the top of each Place page, in order to elicit user reviews. Those local business reviews will obviously be most relevant to the user’s friends, and as Google Plus keeps growing, these network suggestions are going to become even more prevalent.
Tags: google-marketing, google-places, local-business-advertising, local-business-reviews, yelp.com
Posted in Google, local advertising | No Comments »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
As search is getting more and more local, Google has released a new feature that adds descriptive words to local search results. In an attempt to help the searcher better understand what the place is known for, Google will display a few of the most popular words that surround the place on other places online, including user reviews.
Think of it like a tag cloud. If you’re looking for a “coffee shop” and you see that one place in particular is tagged “great coffee”, “pastries”, “free wi-fi” and more, you’ll instantly have a pretty good idea of what other users have experienced at the place in question.
I’m curious how Google is obtaining these user-generated descriptions, but if they’re accurate, this could make search results way more helpful.
Tags: descriptions, Google, google-advertising, local-business-advertising, local-search-results
Posted in Google, Search-Engine-Optimization, local advertising | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
Retail sales are moving online. And then being used in retail stores? Huh?
That’s the Groupon model. You buy online, and spend in person. It’s a purchase reversal, and may be responsible for a huge growth in ecommerce over the next 5 years, according to eMarketer. How big? Well, the predictions are for a 13.7% rise in online retail sales this year, and a 43.4% rise in the next 5.
As shoppers become more tech savvy and mobile becomes more popular, online sales may end up replacing retail sales altogether. But those numbers may just end up deceiving people. After all, the money’s still ending up in the same cash register. Except now, Groupon’s just happening to get a little piece of it.
Tags: emarketer, groupon, internet-marketing-consulting
Posted in local advertising | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
It has been the secret of success for small newspapers for years. Stay local. Stay really local. And put as many local names in the paper as you possibly can. Why? Because local news about you and the people you know is awesome. And if you can’t compete with the the news juggernaut in your nearest metropolitan city, compete in a different way.
Nearly half of American adults now get at least some local news, weather or restaurant information from their smartphones or mobile devices. Now, will people be willing to pay for this content? Definitely not enough. Especially when a competitive provider is going to be offering very similar information for nothing. But if you can attract the local audience, you can always find a way to make money off them. The news is dead. Long live the news.
Tags: local-business-advertising, local-news, mobile-news
Posted in Smartphones, local advertising, mobile-marketing | No Comments »
