If you haven't gotten your Groupon yet...get on board.
Groupon is so simple and that's what makes it great. Each day you are presented with a daily deal for your city. It's usually something to eat, see or buy and it's offered at an incredibly high discount. For example, $20 for $40 worth of food at a local restaurant. You enter your credit card and wait to see if the offer tips. If a large enough group buys the offer, the group gets the deal, er...Groupon. You print out your Groupon and then bring it to the restaurant or wherever to use it same as cash.
Groupon pockets half the revenue...a fair trade for the enormous number of new customers the offer generates.
I've bought 2 restaurant Groupons so far and most offers are very local.
That is until Thurday the 19th, when we all got the Gap Groupon in the mail - $25 for $50 worth of apparel at the Gap.
Social Times is reporting that Groupon sold 441,000 deals, driving $11 million dollars of sales...meaning Groupon could have pocketed $5.5 million.
Groupon had to ramp up server capacity by 5x it's normal level to submit this, its first nationally offered deal. The timing is clear, The Gap just jumpstarted it's Back to School shopping season.
This seems the turning point for group purchasing...look for a lot more of this. The cost savings are incredible for the marketer, relative to running campaigns in print or TV.
This week Viximo and Virtual Greats issued the first major industry report on branded virtual goods, predicting that the branded segment of the virtual goods market will be worth $150 million by 2013, an annual growth rate of 113%.
Branded virtual goods represent a nascent market, holding less than 1% of the booming virtual goods marketplace.…but the forecast shows the incredible growth to come year over year.
At WeeWorld our passionate userbase of 2 million teens per month, display tremendous purchase intent for branded items. Teens flock to WeeWorld to express themselves through their WeeMee avatars, play games, meet friends and chat in our virtual world. Each and every day they beg us for branded items that can help them reflect their real world affiliations and styles in the virtual space.
How popular are branded items? Here is a glimpse from the report:
"According to WeeWorld, a social game and virtual world with a global audience of more than 36 million registered “WeeMee” avatars, unit sales of Snoop Dogg branded items are 2.5 times higher than the highest selling non-branded, comparably priced item. In addition, sales of Snoop Double Doggs (which fall into the category of branded pets called “Cweetures”) are 5 times higher than the highest selling non-branded pet. Since all WeeMee avatars are created equal and do not feature special functionality (i.e. they are vanity-only items) it is clear that Snoop Dogg’s own brand equity is the driving factor behind the increased desirability for these virtual goods that draw from his likeness."
We're proud to offer a prime destination for brands interested in selling virtual goods. Stay tuned - we've got a lot more to come.
It nicely sums up guidelines for using virtual goods to connect brands with the booming audiences in virtual worlds.
At WeeWorld we've been working with brands for years to deliver compelling and fun campaigns and we've learned a lot in the process. Fundamentally, it boils down to fun. Use your brand to bring on the fun and the audience will respond and promote it to their friends, amplifying brand loyalty and favorability.
If the New York Times is writing about the utility of Twitter, then you know it's go to be useful for something, right?
Maybe I'll refer to this article when people ask me why on earth I think Twitter is worth it.
And then there are the vast majority who just look at you and say, Twitter? What's that?
So, what's so great about Twitter?
Keep your ear to the ground Who's talking about your product, company or service? Go to search.twitter.com and find out.
Tweet is cheap If you can assemble a wide enough group of followers, then you've got a cheap and easy way to get the word out widely about what's happening at your site, product, company or service.
First responders I knew there was a quake in California before CNN. We all read the #mumbai eyewitness tweets and were amazed at the amount of collective intelligence we could get just moments from the attack.
Short is good sometimes Short little notes you might find interesting, or that are about things that tell you more about the person, the company, the product. Sometimes the tweets point interesting places.
Celebrity stalking Some celebs Twitter. I don't follow that, but you could.
So ignore Twitter, or not.
But this will likely go the way of the blog...and spread.
If you vote tomorrow, Starbucks will give you a free cup of coffee.
WWSPD (What would Sarah Palin do)...about that? Take a swipe at elitist, Starbucks-sipping voters?
Or maybe not...we know she favors Starbucks Mochas based on her stump rhetoric:
"I'm reading on my Starbucks mocha cup, okay? The quote of the day...
It was Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State [crowd boos] and
UN ambassador. ... Now she said it, I didn't. She said, 'There's a
place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women.'"
Even though that's not what Albright really said...insert "help" where Palin said "support" which puts a different spin on it.
But hey, Starbucks isn't just a cultural indicator, it's increasingly referred to as an economic indicator. Salon notes that you don't need to chart foreclosures or rising unemployment to know how badly the economy is really tanking...you just watch how many Americans are "cutting back on their morning lattes at Starbucks."
On Halloween The Motley Fool named Starbucks the World's Scariest Stock due in part to "a bone-chilling outlook for consumer discretionary spending."
But why stop at the US economy? Slate's Daniel Gross has a theory that there is "a close correlation between a country having a significant Starbucks
presence, especially in its financial capital, and major financial
cock-ups," er...meltdowns.
"Having a significant Starbucks presence is a pretty significant
indicator of the degree of connectedness to the form of highly
caffeinated, free-spending capitalism that got us into this mess. It's
also a sign of a culture's willingness to abandon traditional norms and
ways of doing business (virtually all the countries in which Starbucks
has established beachheads have their own venerable coffee-house
traditions) in favor of fast-moving American ones."
Hmm...I'll have to think about that over my free Starbucks coffee tomorrow.
John
Wood was a rising Microsoft marketing exec who went on a backpacking
vacation to Nepal to take a break from the burnout of his demanding job.
While
there he was invited to visit a school. As he toured the building he
found that the 450 kids that went there had ZERO books. None. Unless
you counted the two castoff books from backpackers like himself - a
paperback Danielle Steele novel and a Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia. These were kept under lock and key to keep them safe from the children!
He vowed to come back with books for the school. And he did.
I'll get out of the way and let John tell his incredible story:
I'm
inspired by John's journey from marketing software to marketing the
fight against illiteracy and poverty and founding Room to Read...not to mention the personal
courage it took for him to walk away from those Microsoft dollars.
And
while lots of aid groups make a difference, the reason I'm so
passionate about Room to Read is that to reach success, Wood applied
key business and marketing principles he learned at Microsoft:
Scalable, measured, sustainable results
Low-overhead, allowing maximum investment in educational infrastructure
Challenge grants fostering community ownership and sustainability
Strong local staff and partnerships creating culturally relevant programs
The scalable, measured results start immediately with the way Room to Read works with volunteers and donors.
You don't just donate cash and wonder where it goes. Instead you know exactly what
your money is being used for, because you work together with Room to
Read to fund a project. It's a model for 21st century
philanthropy...linking communities with donors so that each can
co-invest to create sustainable change.
So here's where you come in...
I've joined forces with Barbara Heffner and a number of other inspired people to reinvigorate the Boston Chapter of Room to Read. And we're thrilled to launch our first project.
On Wednesday, November 12th we are hosting an event with the goal of building 10 libraries for kids in Cambodia. We need $40,000 to reach our goal.
What can you do?
Come to our event at the Elephant Walk restaurant in Cambridge on Nov. 12th! Here's the invitation $25 per person donation/$30 at the door We will provide munchies and drinks and a silent auction (Red Sox tickets are in the auction - hey, there's always next year!)
We will track all money raised and get back to you on the progress we're making.
Let's
be generous so that one day soon you will read a blog post or email
from me showcasing pictures of the libraries we have built together.
That
way you and I can see the smiling beautiful faces of the kids we
help...and have the experience that so inspired John Wood to leave
Microsoft and use what he learned there to change the world.
