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Dec
Mixing Google Places with Groupon offers
Estate Agents, the rumours are rife that giant Google has placed
a bid to buy the successful website Groupon.
For those that are unsure, Groupon is a
‘deal-of-the-day’ website that has huge popularity in
the United States and Canada and has expanded internationally
including European, South America, Russian and Japanese
markets.
What happens is the retailer puts forward a deal with a minimum
requirement for people to sign up. If not enough people sign up,
the deal becomes invalid and no one gets the deal.
Although this is not yet official, it is important to realise
the implications of such an acquisition.
Google buying Groupon means that this deal system has to be
incorporated somewhere into Google’s system.
There are two possibilities here. Google can either set up a
separate area or page for their new purchase or they can integrate
into the Places facility.
Integrating a deal system into Google Places will not only give
people a greater reason to use Places for more than directions but
could also allow Estate Agents to place offers marketed directly at
the people who are looking for them.
These could consist of a range of offers that Estate Agents
currently promote including ‘free valuation’, ‘No
sale no fee’, ‘free EPC’ etc.
These promotional offers will probably co-exist with an Estate
Agent’s website and Places SEO meaning that the better the
Estate Agent’s website and Places, the more exposure each
deal with get.
The problem is that Groupon is currently an e-commerce website
and only promotes offers that are transactional.
In the end, it is more likely that Google will create a separate
area for the newly acquired offer system.
James Coyne
eMarketing and Social Media Consultant
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