With much of the media attention covering Groupon’s pending $25 billion IPO, many social entrepreneurs may be looking to explore using Groupon’s services to promote their organization. Even more so, many social entrepreneurs may be taking this time to reevaluate their entire marketing strategy. We maintain that it is never a bad time to give such questions some critical thought.
So have you jumped on the Groupon daily-deal bandwagon? Why wouldn’t you? For many cash strapped nonprofits and social enterprises Groupon’s business model offers a way to advertise to would be customers without putting investing cash up-front. Sure, your organization needs to be prepared to offer a discount but this expense is not paid until an actual sale is made. This is great news for many small organizations.
Despite the great news for organizations, Groupon is not an option for many; at least not for a while. This is because in a given market, your organization may be put on Groupon’s waiting list. So while it may be a good idea to get on the waiting list now, what other options do you have? Well according to daily-discount deal aggregator Yipit, there are at least 400 Groupon competitors to choose from. Clearly there is no shortage of market participants in which to choose from.
The question is how do you choose? For my money, I say take a look at Google Offers, Amazon’s partner LivingSocial, and Facebook Deals. Each of these Groupon competitors has much to offer, but I find Google Offers and Facebook Deals to be ones to keep an eye on. The reason is rather simple: eyeballs. Google and Facebook in particular have services that already bring many eyeballs to potentially see your organization’s offer. In addition, they already provide services that many organizations already use. For example, Google Offers integrates with its existing advertising platform, in general, and with Google Places, in particular. Not to mention the mobile component enabled by its Android operating system.
So as the general media headlines in the near future may revolve around Groupon’s pending IPO, be sure to not get overwhelmed by the hype and do your due diligence. Yipit’s blog is a good place to start.
Thanks to social media small business can enjoy of not only one channel to get promoted, but several ones. Fortunately, every time a great proposal like the one Groupon or Livingsocial steps into the market, the competitors do not wait.
ReplyDeleteAs a business, big or small, there is never one way to go and Groupon competitors, as you said, have a lot of things to offer. I say Moveon!
You bring up a lot of considerable options. I for one was not aware of the number of different coupon firms out there. I believe either Google Offers, LivingSocial or Facebook Deals alone is enough to wipe out Groupon's existence. They have a lot of competition out there, so it is vital for them to make the best decision out of their pending state. Should they decide to ignore the offer again, they are going to have one tough time out their competing with those leading social sites.
ReplyDeleteThat is an impressive number of competitors for something that seems like such a "new" idea. I agree that we should not get carried away in the hype as it is an industry that can easily be taken over. Groupon does have a pretty cool and catchy name though, so perhaps Groupon's marketing is what will actually carry it on to success.
ReplyDeleteGroupon collects all the money from participants up-front and within a few days we’ll send you a check based on campaign participation. This info is really helpful for my How does groupon work business. I hope you like it.
ReplyDelete