There was a big drama in my house recently that resulted in a lot of tears and depression for one of my family members. Officially, Lego is shutting down their Lego Universe game. My 10 year old son, who loved the game, hasn't been the same since, but is slowly bouncing back.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar, Lego Universe is the latest MMORPG game that has been released by the toy manufacturer. Admittedly, it was a beautiful game, having great detail, lots of levels of interaction, wonderful audio tracks, and so on. You can read more about the game here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Universe
Why did the game shut down? According to Jesper Vilstrup, Vice President of LEGO Universe, "...We have not been able to build a satisfactory revenue
model in our target group..."
When my son started to play the game, there seemed to be a few red flags that popped up, which made me wonder about the thinking that went behind developing a game as impressive as Lego Universe. First were the system requirements. My son, who grew up with computers and among computer parts strewn everywhere, searched through four computers before he could find one that could play the game. The one that he used to play Roblox, Maple Story, and even Rumble Fighter, was not able to handle the spec requirements for the new Lego Universe.
Next, came the price. At first, Lego Universe required full subscription purchase in order to play the game. His mother, a real stickler on paying up for games, talked him out of paying up front, as she said, "You don't even know what it's like. How do you know you will even want to play it?" Finally, Lego opened up a few free levels. When he realized this, he was able to convince his mother to pay up, which she did. His friends, however, as he later reported to us, didn't even know that the game had free levels.
It was then that I started to wonder if the great Lego had a full understanding of their target market, or as they said, their target group. Who was their target group?
Now, I've been to Target and Walmart and various toy stores. It seems to me that Lego is marketing to children, correct me if I am wrong. Toys that they distribute are always found in toy sections among other toys. Toys are modeled after kids shows like the latest Star Wars series, Sponge Bob, and Harry Potter. Not that there is no adult appeal for these things, but I don't think that is where Lego is going with these toys.
If you have young children who play video games, you know there is constant struggle between them and their parents. A big part of the reason is that parents just don't want their kids focusing too much of their time on video games. They want them to study, do homework, play. They immediately have a suspicion of video games, and they are cautious about throwing in too much support.
It seems to me that Lego threw up two major barriers that would prevent children from being able to sign up for Universe. The first came in the system requirements. Lots of kids get hand-me-down computers, which don't necessarily have the latest and greatest technology. Will parents spend money on new computers or video cards so their kids can play games? Unlikely. The second came in making a game that wasn't free. How were they going to enable their biggest fanbase, the kids, to be able to bargain with their parents to buy them something, if the parents didn't even know what they were buying in the first place?
A more common model is to give the game for free, and charge for upgrades and items, like the Zynga series, Maple Story, Evony, and so on. Doing it this way, kids can nickle and dime their parents out of hundreds of dollars over the course of a year. How many times have I had to go to 7-11 to pick up a gift card from Nexon, the makers of Maple Story? And I'm sure grandparents, while they might not really get the idea of buying virtual items, will be perfectly willing to re-charge a gift card for their little darlings. In fact, on his birthday month, my son was able to negotiate the
maximum allowable amount of Nexon cash from all his family members as
birthday presents for a total of $135.00. Maple Story banned him from
buying more virtual items for a full month!
It's because of this that in retrospect, I wonder if Lego Universe was doomed to failure. I don't think the intention was for Lego to simply release a game and retire it after a year or so in order to do a toy promotion. They're doing an awful lot of damage control right now for this. Check out this posting http://universe.lego.com/en-us/community/newsnetwork/story.aspx?id=359519&icmp=COHomeNewsUSLU. And they're giving money back! This smells more like a new revenue stream to me. But it looks to me like it lacks a revenue model that takes into account those variables that define its market.
What do we take from this? Know your market. Understand its limitations and its perspective. You can't sell meat to a vegan, but you sure can sell them fake meat.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
You are Sherlock Holmes, i.e., Understanding your Web Users
There are many ways to track usage on your site. There are plenty of services out there where you generate a snippet of code, put that on your pages, and voila!, you've got tracking.
These are great, because they tell you about what is being done on your site, who is visiting, where they are from, when they are coming, how many pages they've seen, how long they've been here, what browser they're using, and so on.
Although these services provide you with information, do they provide you with insight? Do they tell you anything about what people are looking for? Why they came here? What they are expecting or hoping to find?
The answer is no, not really. You can, of course, study stat reports and infer some things. You can be like Sherlock Holmes and make conclusions based on certain pieces of evidence. But these are inferences, after all.
This is where I will argue for having some kind of search functionality on your site. You know, that helpless little search bar at the top right hand corner of your site which every web developer puts on just for the sake of it, and because "that's what everyone else is doing anyway."
The search bar provides you with more opportunity to gain insight into not just usage, but also an understanding of what people want, hope, and expect from your site.
Take a look at the image to the left. This is a tracking function that we developed for a medical device client of ours. The red bars on the left hand side are graphs that show the number of specific keywords that were entered into the search bar on the web site. The right hand side shows the number of results that the search function provided based on the keyword. If there were results, you could then see which pages produced those results.
In this case, most searches did not produce results of any kind for users that were utilizing the search function. What does this tell you?
If you can simply know what your audience is looking for, you can start to create content that will address those needs and desires. In the case of this client, we developed a CMS where meta keywords were the determining factor that drove search results. If people are looking for a particular product, for example, and this manufacturer does not produce that product, but produces one similar, the manufacturer can then create keywords based on queries which will produce relevant results for the user.
Thus insight. Which is a little more than just tracking, and really brings into focus just why you have a web site in the first place.
These are great, because they tell you about what is being done on your site, who is visiting, where they are from, when they are coming, how many pages they've seen, how long they've been here, what browser they're using, and so on.
Although these services provide you with information, do they provide you with insight? Do they tell you anything about what people are looking for? Why they came here? What they are expecting or hoping to find?
The answer is no, not really. You can, of course, study stat reports and infer some things. You can be like Sherlock Holmes and make conclusions based on certain pieces of evidence. But these are inferences, after all.
This is where I will argue for having some kind of search functionality on your site. You know, that helpless little search bar at the top right hand corner of your site which every web developer puts on just for the sake of it, and because "that's what everyone else is doing anyway."
The search bar provides you with more opportunity to gain insight into not just usage, but also an understanding of what people want, hope, and expect from your site.
Take a look at the image to the left. This is a tracking function that we developed for a medical device client of ours. The red bars on the left hand side are graphs that show the number of specific keywords that were entered into the search bar on the web site. The right hand side shows the number of results that the search function provided based on the keyword. If there were results, you could then see which pages produced those results.
In this case, most searches did not produce results of any kind for users that were utilizing the search function. What does this tell you?
If you can simply know what your audience is looking for, you can start to create content that will address those needs and desires. In the case of this client, we developed a CMS where meta keywords were the determining factor that drove search results. If people are looking for a particular product, for example, and this manufacturer does not produce that product, but produces one similar, the manufacturer can then create keywords based on queries which will produce relevant results for the user.
Thus insight. Which is a little more than just tracking, and really brings into focus just why you have a web site in the first place.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Us vs Them on Technology
Ok, so the title may be a bit misleading. I'm not really trying to start some kind of class warfare on the use of technology. Instead, I simply want to level the playing field.
We've all seen big business, and the cool and fun things it can do with the Web. Denny's, for example, with its live social media feeds, Pizza Hut with its pizza ordering app, Dominoes with its "Check your order status real-time", and so on. Small and medium sized businesses, however, don't always have easy access to this kind of highly customized technology and almost never have time to really think and spec it out.
Dynamic is fun
If you have a Website where you do some kind of dynamic user interaction, like make a sale, receive a customer request, or track an order, you have access to gems of information that, if presented in the right way, can be fun, interesting, and engaging.
MaggieMudd received orders online. We had built out a system for online cake orders that did everything from upload photos to create collaborative spaces so customers could interact with the cake decorator to design their own cake. It was nice for the customer. But there was also a valuable and interesting by-product: Data.
Take a look at this information. Through simple calculation, the company was able to dynamically feed data about their orders. Most interesting is the delivery miles, which turned out to be an overall distance of almost once around the earth for the city of San Francisco alone. There are other data points as well that talk a little bit about the kinds of orders that MaggieMudd got, which also gave a little bit of insight into the character of the company.
Social media is an open publishing platform
MaggieMudd was able to publish dynamic data through the Facebook platform. This was particularly useful when it came time to engage in so-called social commerce. What is social commerce? Isn't all commerce social since it takes place between humans who must interact in some way in order for a commercial transaction to take place?
Well, yes, all commerce is social, but some types of e-commerce can have a social overlay which can help to distribute products through certain social media channels. The jury is out on how effective this type of commerce is for a company like MaggieMudd, but as it goes in any kind of business that sells consumer goods, more distribution points are better than less.
The positive side is that to set up social commerce on Facebook does not require a bunch of new work because the data and the processes were already designed and set up years ago.
Status reports are always appreciated
Lastly, I wanted to show a page that MaggieMudd did to show customers the status of their orders. Order status was already tracked in the order management system, and to make that data available to customers in real-time only required that the data be re-hashed in a fun and playful way.
In fact, this page was really a no-brainer, since all the data points that were already being used by the company employees were now able to be used to engage the customer.
You might be sitting on a gold mine
If you have data about your customers, you can always use that data to further engage those same customers. And that is as good as gold, because if your customers like to engage with you, they almost certainly will come back when they are again in need of products or services like the ones you offer.
We've all seen big business, and the cool and fun things it can do with the Web. Denny's, for example, with its live social media feeds, Pizza Hut with its pizza ordering app, Dominoes with its "Check your order status real-time", and so on. Small and medium sized businesses, however, don't always have easy access to this kind of highly customized technology and almost never have time to really think and spec it out.
Dynamic is fun
If you have a Website where you do some kind of dynamic user interaction, like make a sale, receive a customer request, or track an order, you have access to gems of information that, if presented in the right way, can be fun, interesting, and engaging.
MaggieMudd received orders online. We had built out a system for online cake orders that did everything from upload photos to create collaborative spaces so customers could interact with the cake decorator to design their own cake. It was nice for the customer. But there was also a valuable and interesting by-product: Data.
Take a look at this information. Through simple calculation, the company was able to dynamically feed data about their orders. Most interesting is the delivery miles, which turned out to be an overall distance of almost once around the earth for the city of San Francisco alone. There are other data points as well that talk a little bit about the kinds of orders that MaggieMudd got, which also gave a little bit of insight into the character of the company.Social media is an open publishing platform
MaggieMudd was able to publish dynamic data through the Facebook platform. This was particularly useful when it came time to engage in so-called social commerce. What is social commerce? Isn't all commerce social since it takes place between humans who must interact in some way in order for a commercial transaction to take place?
Well, yes, all commerce is social, but some types of e-commerce can have a social overlay which can help to distribute products through certain social media channels. The jury is out on how effective this type of commerce is for a company like MaggieMudd, but as it goes in any kind of business that sells consumer goods, more distribution points are better than less.The positive side is that to set up social commerce on Facebook does not require a bunch of new work because the data and the processes were already designed and set up years ago.
Status reports are always appreciated
Lastly, I wanted to show a page that MaggieMudd did to show customers the status of their orders. Order status was already tracked in the order management system, and to make that data available to customers in real-time only required that the data be re-hashed in a fun and playful way.
You might be sitting on a gold mine
If you have data about your customers, you can always use that data to further engage those same customers. And that is as good as gold, because if your customers like to engage with you, they almost certainly will come back when they are again in need of products or services like the ones you offer.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Everyone can follow the clearly marked path to Nirvana
If you point to the place where everyone wants to be, do you think they will go there? At the very least, some folks will check out the path you are directing them towards, some will follow it, and some will just ignore it and find their own way. But one thing is for certain, if you are absolutely sure of the path to Nirvana, and you can show people that path, quite a few will follow you there.
This should be the driving philosophy behind email. I'm sure you've received plenty of emails in your lifetime from folks who want to sell you something. I know I have. But so many of those emails have so much stuff in them that I start to zone out, feel a headache coming on, and then hit the delete button.
The problem with those emails is that they're crowded, with a hundred different fingers pointing in a hundred different directions. Some of the big box retail companies send out perfect examples of these. They've got lots of departments that have lots of deals, and they try to put them all in one place. I wonder what would happen if they focused their interest groups into segments, and then sent out more targeted deals?
If you're a small or medium sized business, you likely don't have as much variety of stuff to sell. If you've managed to collect an email address list from your website, then your interest group is already defined. You've got your segment, now you just need to follow up.
That idea about pointing down the path to Nirvana? Well, that still stands. Check out this email from MaggieMudd. There's nothing on there but a giant red button that says "deal" on it. Obviously, it's a call to action and it makes a nice promise. Now, here's the proof: This email, used multiple times for different campaigns, scored a high of 10.03% click-through. The lowest, 5.99%. This is a conservative measure, as the rate is calculated on the number of emails sent, not opened, compared to the number of emails clicked on.
The results speak for themselves. Which really tells us something. Simplicity is good. A realistic promise is nice. And having an email address list of people who are already interested in your business goes a long way towards increasing sales. People don't have time to sort through stuff. As one of my sales colleagues once told me, and I'll never forget it, as a business you've got to "lift your skirt and show your goods."
This should be the driving philosophy behind email. I'm sure you've received plenty of emails in your lifetime from folks who want to sell you something. I know I have. But so many of those emails have so much stuff in them that I start to zone out, feel a headache coming on, and then hit the delete button.
The problem with those emails is that they're crowded, with a hundred different fingers pointing in a hundred different directions. Some of the big box retail companies send out perfect examples of these. They've got lots of departments that have lots of deals, and they try to put them all in one place. I wonder what would happen if they focused their interest groups into segments, and then sent out more targeted deals?
If you're a small or medium sized business, you likely don't have as much variety of stuff to sell. If you've managed to collect an email address list from your website, then your interest group is already defined. You've got your segment, now you just need to follow up.That idea about pointing down the path to Nirvana? Well, that still stands. Check out this email from MaggieMudd. There's nothing on there but a giant red button that says "deal" on it. Obviously, it's a call to action and it makes a nice promise. Now, here's the proof: This email, used multiple times for different campaigns, scored a high of 10.03% click-through. The lowest, 5.99%. This is a conservative measure, as the rate is calculated on the number of emails sent, not opened, compared to the number of emails clicked on.
The results speak for themselves. Which really tells us something. Simplicity is good. A realistic promise is nice. And having an email address list of people who are already interested in your business goes a long way towards increasing sales. People don't have time to sort through stuff. As one of my sales colleagues once told me, and I'll never forget it, as a business you've got to "lift your skirt and show your goods."
Monday, September 5, 2011
Building stickiness around web apps
When you talk about the stickiness factor of your web apps, you're not talking about selling cotton candy online. Instead, you're talking about the ability of your web applications to either tempt or coerce your customers to come back to you again for content or services.
Getting them to come back is the goal of anyone who is trying to build a business online. Repeat customers are golden in the sense that they have already patronized your business, know something about it, and are likely to remember you whenever they are in need of something similar.
So, how do you get them to come back, other than providing an excellent service? This is where the idea of stickiness comes in.
Discounts and deals that have an extended shelf life is one way. Here's an example. When we built an e-commerce system for MaggieMudd, one of the requirements was to be able to manage deals. These were, of course, coming from Groupon, Living Social, Town Hog, and so on. The orders needed to be placed online, the unique voucher number entered, and in the background, the voucher management system needed to take care of the redemption process, discount, and issuance of credit to the customer.
MaggieMudd structured their deals so that folks who purchased an item online with the deal voucher would always have a little bit left over, anywhere from 1 to 5 dollars. MaggieMudd was not crazy enough to give back cash to their customers, instead, they gave them something more valuable. A digital gift card. The order management system was tied into a digital gift card manager. Soon, MaggieMudd was issuing hundreds of small value gift cards to their deal-based customers. In so doing, they were tempting them back when they were again in need of something similar to what MaggieMudd sold. If you had a good experience, why not go with the guy who sent you a discount?
Sticky apps range from email collectors, that is, when people sign up on your website for a coupon, a newsletter, or as part of an e-commerce process, to customized content. We're presently working on a top-secret "post-it note" application on the MaggieMudd site that will allow visitors to tag and post notes on pages that are interesting, and ask for an email reminder of the page on any specific day that they need it. This is an exciting project, because it means that people will have a way of finding them again at a more relevant time, say, when a birthday or a celebration event is coming up.
There is plenty of opportunity to develop sticky apps in order to gain and retain customers. Facebook, perhaps the ultimate of stickiness, is an important place to develop apps that give your fans' networks the ability to interact with you and the further opportunity to connect with them again. Take a look at our Facebook page to see some of the apps we developed as lead generation tools.
Getting them to come back is the goal of anyone who is trying to build a business online. Repeat customers are golden in the sense that they have already patronized your business, know something about it, and are likely to remember you whenever they are in need of something similar.
So, how do you get them to come back, other than providing an excellent service? This is where the idea of stickiness comes in.
Discounts and deals that have an extended shelf life is one way. Here's an example. When we built an e-commerce system for MaggieMudd, one of the requirements was to be able to manage deals. These were, of course, coming from Groupon, Living Social, Town Hog, and so on. The orders needed to be placed online, the unique voucher number entered, and in the background, the voucher management system needed to take care of the redemption process, discount, and issuance of credit to the customer.
There is plenty of opportunity to develop sticky apps in order to gain and retain customers. Facebook, perhaps the ultimate of stickiness, is an important place to develop apps that give your fans' networks the ability to interact with you and the further opportunity to connect with them again. Take a look at our Facebook page to see some of the apps we developed as lead generation tools.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Lead with your face...book
Ok, I'll admit that I don't watch much TV anymore. Or read very many magazines. I can get all that stuff "in the cloud", and much more than I'll ever need in multiple lifetimes.
However, when I do watch television, I pay special attention to the ads. Why? Ads can be more shocking, more funny, and more interesting than even the program that I originally sat down to watch. Ads also leave you with a calling card, a place that you can go after the 30 second mini drama to get more information.
I was surprised to find that many of the retail and consumer goods companies that are advertising on TV are leading their digital marketing efforts with their facebook pages. That is to say, the first place these TV ads send you, if you want more information, is directly to their facebook page. Not their own corporate web site. A perfect example of this is Jeremiah Weed, an alcohol company that places provocative, mysterious images before you in their TV ads, before sending you off to their facebook page, where you can hopefully get a sense about what's going on in the big picture. The facebook page for Jeremiah Weed is here http://www.facebook.com/JeremiahWeed
So why lead with social media? Do social media sites really give you enough time and space to tell your story the way a corporate website does?
Technically, facebook is a quick and easy publishing platform. There's no doubt about this. Setting up and maintaining a facebook page takes no time compared to developing and maintaining your own website. But even more important than this, facebook, and all social media, allow users to interact with content, and in doing so, push that content to other users who exist within their network. So, if you as a facebook user like a particular facebook page, then your entire network sees this. You then provide them the opportunity to like that facebook page as well. Suddenly, the company's page that all your friends just saw got a bunch of new eyeballs, or impressions, without the company having to pay a single dime. Unlike advertising. And because your friends might tend to listen to you, that company page that you just liked, is more legitimate in the eyes of your social group.
Business owners should see the lead generating potential of social media. Yet, content is king. As a business who has a facebook page, or might be thinking of starting one, it's important to give your potential fan base something to look at, some thing to interact with, some information that is relevant and useful. Here are some of my favorite customized facebook pages, there are of course, many out there. Jeremiah Weed, Blockbuster Express, TigerDirect, Denny's, Big 5 Sporting Goods.
I like these pages because they each provide opportunities to their visitors and fanbases to interact more with the company. Jeremiah Weed is the most fun on the scale, and Big 5, although not so exciting, provides you with the opportunity to get a coupon to save some money by signing up right on the page. Business owners will appreciate the lead-generating capabilities of these facebook pages.
Check out the CoScient facebook page. Like us and sign up to get your own interactive, custom designed facebook page.
However, when I do watch television, I pay special attention to the ads. Why? Ads can be more shocking, more funny, and more interesting than even the program that I originally sat down to watch. Ads also leave you with a calling card, a place that you can go after the 30 second mini drama to get more information.
I was surprised to find that many of the retail and consumer goods companies that are advertising on TV are leading their digital marketing efforts with their facebook pages. That is to say, the first place these TV ads send you, if you want more information, is directly to their facebook page. Not their own corporate web site. A perfect example of this is Jeremiah Weed, an alcohol company that places provocative, mysterious images before you in their TV ads, before sending you off to their facebook page, where you can hopefully get a sense about what's going on in the big picture. The facebook page for Jeremiah Weed is here http://www.facebook.com/JeremiahWeed
So why lead with social media? Do social media sites really give you enough time and space to tell your story the way a corporate website does?
Technically, facebook is a quick and easy publishing platform. There's no doubt about this. Setting up and maintaining a facebook page takes no time compared to developing and maintaining your own website. But even more important than this, facebook, and all social media, allow users to interact with content, and in doing so, push that content to other users who exist within their network. So, if you as a facebook user like a particular facebook page, then your entire network sees this. You then provide them the opportunity to like that facebook page as well. Suddenly, the company's page that all your friends just saw got a bunch of new eyeballs, or impressions, without the company having to pay a single dime. Unlike advertising. And because your friends might tend to listen to you, that company page that you just liked, is more legitimate in the eyes of your social group.
Business owners should see the lead generating potential of social media. Yet, content is king. As a business who has a facebook page, or might be thinking of starting one, it's important to give your potential fan base something to look at, some thing to interact with, some information that is relevant and useful. Here are some of my favorite customized facebook pages, there are of course, many out there. Jeremiah Weed, Blockbuster Express, TigerDirect, Denny's, Big 5 Sporting Goods.
I like these pages because they each provide opportunities to their visitors and fanbases to interact more with the company. Jeremiah Weed is the most fun on the scale, and Big 5, although not so exciting, provides you with the opportunity to get a coupon to save some money by signing up right on the page. Business owners will appreciate the lead-generating capabilities of these facebook pages.
Check out the CoScient facebook page. Like us and sign up to get your own interactive, custom designed facebook page.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Converting those one-time Groupon customers to regular customers
If you've had a Groupon offering, or are thinking of having one, you MUST develop a strategy for maximizing your customer relationship. First rule of thumb: Do not take what the sales rep gives you. They will tell you about all kinds of deal structures that have worked really well in the past, and that you should follow one of those past models. Keep in mind, Groupon needs to sell as much as possible today so they can pay for yesterday's merchant deals. Consequently, they'll look for quantity over quality. Last thing you want is for a Groupon customer to run into your business, snatch the deal, and then disappear into the dark alleys, never to be seen again. This is quite common.
Second rule of thumb: You are on your own. Groupon and other group buying sites, will NEVER share their email address list with you. That list is the very foundation of their business, they've paid big bucks to build it, and they're not gonna give it up, even the addresses of those customers who bought YOUR products through them. Groupon is not interested in helping your business thrive, even though they pitch you this way. They are interested in selling your products and getting their commission. In and out, drive-by style. Getting those customers to come in again will depend on you. You'll need to reach down into that entrepreneurial mind of yours to come up with a solution.
So, what can you do to ensure that a Groupon offering will actually help you in the long run, rather than simply provide you with a big wave of money-losing customers for a short time?
Think about how you will structure the deal. And track your customers. The former has to do with business. The latter, technology.
MaggieMudd ran a number of group buying deals. One of the products the company sold was ice cream cake. The product was sold online, and could be completely tracked. It was delivered, much like pizza, but purchases needed to be made 24 hours in advance, as all cake sales were custom made.
Anecdotal evidence pointed to the development of new customers from cakes that were delivered to Groupon customers. Typically, cakes served anywhere from 6 to 150 people. This meant, they were mostly only appropriate for parties. Consequently, new people were introduced to the product, and thereby became new customers. And paying customers, too.
It's hard for technology to track this behavior, but it's not hard for a merchant to set up a deal with this in mind. If you can design a deal that will REQUIRE your customers to come back again, or even better, to bring their friends, you have a better chance of growing your base.
Using technology to track your customers, and communicate with them, is not a new idea. I'm sure you've been into a Borders store, and were asked about your Borders rewards account. Lots of stores do this.
In this case, MaggieMudd did a double-punch. They required all Groupon originating purchases to be done online. As a result, they were able to collect the Groupon email address list on their own, and leave something with the customer. Utilizing the Gift Card Manager in conjunction with their online ordering system, they were able to convert customer balances into digital gift cards which customers could use later.
The image here will probably make most merchants cringe. Using a deal voucher, the customer now is owed $8.51. After already having a 50% discount.
To give Groupon and others credit, they do not require you to give money back to the customer in this case. Instead, customers need to use the entirety of the voucher, or forfeit any positive balance.
But why not just keep a balance and leave a calling card, i.e., digital gift card, instead? And while you are at it, encourage the customer to opt-in to your own deals list? If you can do all of this, then you have a better chance of converting those customers into return and even regular customers.
While it's true that many businesses will not have a model that lends itself easily to online ordering, there is always an opportunity to using technology to gain their loyalty. It starts with getting that email address AND managing that email address. After that, you can do all kinds of fun things, like email promos, random drawings, 50% off deals, and so on. If your business does a 50% off Facebook deal, for example, and a former Groupon customer from your email list picks it up, you are better off because you don't have to pay any commission.Simple bottom line fact.
Manage your own digital gift cards for FREE. Click here.
Start collecting email addresses from your own site for FREE. Click here.
So, what can you do to ensure that a Groupon offering will actually help you in the long run, rather than simply provide you with a big wave of money-losing customers for a short time?
Think about how you will structure the deal. And track your customers. The former has to do with business. The latter, technology.
MaggieMudd ran a number of group buying deals. One of the products the company sold was ice cream cake. The product was sold online, and could be completely tracked. It was delivered, much like pizza, but purchases needed to be made 24 hours in advance, as all cake sales were custom made.
Anecdotal evidence pointed to the development of new customers from cakes that were delivered to Groupon customers. Typically, cakes served anywhere from 6 to 150 people. This meant, they were mostly only appropriate for parties. Consequently, new people were introduced to the product, and thereby became new customers. And paying customers, too.
It's hard for technology to track this behavior, but it's not hard for a merchant to set up a deal with this in mind. If you can design a deal that will REQUIRE your customers to come back again, or even better, to bring their friends, you have a better chance of growing your base.
Using technology to track your customers, and communicate with them, is not a new idea. I'm sure you've been into a Borders store, and were asked about your Borders rewards account. Lots of stores do this.
In this case, MaggieMudd did a double-punch. They required all Groupon originating purchases to be done online. As a result, they were able to collect the Groupon email address list on their own, and leave something with the customer. Utilizing the Gift Card Manager in conjunction with their online ordering system, they were able to convert customer balances into digital gift cards which customers could use later.
To give Groupon and others credit, they do not require you to give money back to the customer in this case. Instead, customers need to use the entirety of the voucher, or forfeit any positive balance.
But why not just keep a balance and leave a calling card, i.e., digital gift card, instead? And while you are at it, encourage the customer to opt-in to your own deals list? If you can do all of this, then you have a better chance of converting those customers into return and even regular customers.
While it's true that many businesses will not have a model that lends itself easily to online ordering, there is always an opportunity to using technology to gain their loyalty. It starts with getting that email address AND managing that email address. After that, you can do all kinds of fun things, like email promos, random drawings, 50% off deals, and so on. If your business does a 50% off Facebook deal, for example, and a former Groupon customer from your email list picks it up, you are better off because you don't have to pay any commission.Simple bottom line fact.
Manage your own digital gift cards for FREE. Click here.
Start collecting email addresses from your own site for FREE. Click here.
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