At a recent meeting of the WPP Digital Advisory Committee, I had the pleasure of hearing a presentation from Lee Brown, SVP Sales from Groupon, in which he talked about the company’s meteoric growth and shared some interesting stats about the company:

• Groupon is adding 1 million new users every week
• Groupon is adding 3-5 cities per week
• 25% of transactions are mobile (up dramatically from only 3% in November)
• 70% of users are female
• Groupon holds an 82% share of the daily deals category
• A recent program with the Gap, the Groupon list performed 10x better than the Gap’s in-house list, with half of the transactions coming from new customers
• It is estimated there are approximately 600 similar companies

Clearly the concept of combining the power of a good deal and a social platform is winner, a fact not lost on Facebook, as they beta test their Facebook Deals program in Canada. TAXI currently has two Clients participating in the Canadian beta program.

Now that these services have become a viable marketing tactic, the challenge becomes defining an effective strategy to maximize the effectiveness and the targeting opportunities these platforms afford. We see five strategies for Clients to consider:

Launch support: New store openings, new brand or product launches all depend on building awareness and trial and more and more the strategy is to reach the right people, not just anyone. Leveraging the Groupon profile data, you can target your launch offer to a very specific segment of their user base to ensure you maximize impact and minimize waste.

Competitive strike: Is a competitor making inroads in a particular market, or with a particular segment of your customer base? Use that intelligence to target a direct counter offer that will get your customers back. New capabilities Groupon is working on for national brands, will extend the possibilities here to include targeted brand offers to specific retailers – think 50% off Bauer skates only at Canadian Tire.

Shift the basket mix: Another strategy for a Groupon type offer is to target current customers with an offer to broaden their purchase behaviour and get them to try a new product or version of your product they may never considered before. For retailers, this strategy is an effective way to introduce customers to another department of your store.

Customer value based deals: For existing valuable customers, or members of an affinity or loyalty program, the strategy is to use these deals to reward their value and loyalty to your brand.  To grow your customer base, a targeted offer is an effective way to introduce your product or service to a new segment of consumers and drive trial.

Time Based Deals & Dayparting: Expiry dates are so passé. How about expiry times? Groupon offers are a great way to drive increased sales at specific times of day, or even deep discounts for limited time-frames (50% off between 2 and 4pm only).

As the capabilities and the available consumer data from Groupon and other similar services expands and improves the power of these strategies will intensify and social deals will become an important part of local and national marketing plans. The key will be to understand how to effectively use the data and link your social deal strategy to your broader social marketing program.