Groupons - A Cool Social Media Application
No clipping no searching - just saving.
Social media has taken the old school art of coupon clipping and turned it on it's ear with Groupons.
Groupons take advantage of the "customer collective" to drive dozens or even hundreds of new customers through your door. Essentially, you can offer a discount to Groupon.com members and if enough people sign up for your discount, it takes effect.
So let's say you offer a special CD "groupon" and want at least 50 people to take advantage. Groupon.com will send an email blast of your offer to their members in your city. Anyone interested in your CD offer, will forward the message onto their friends in the hopes that at least 50 people sign up and make the offer "valid." And their friends invite their friends and so on...
Groupon clients are seeing new customers come though their doors based on viral marketing and are guaranteed a minimum return or no discounts are given.
Groupons are now being offered in 45 cities.
Whether they are right for your strategic objectives or not - it's always cool to see new ways that social and viral marketing can impact our business. If you know of any cool new applications, please share it with the MarketMatch blog community by posting a reply to this blog.
Take care,Eric
