“Personalisation is going to be key to fighting daily deal fatigue in 2012”
TV PRESENTER AND GOODYPASS FOUNDER KATE GARRAWAY SPEAKING AT THE SUMMIT
“Social curation will play a big part in the success of daily deals,
whereby users can see how many of their Facebook friends have bought a particular offer, for example.” Cheryl Yeoh,
founder of CityPockets
Oxfordshire.” The so-called nearcation” is one of the sales opportunities to have sprung from these local commerce sites catering to urban young professionals, and what is a largely female client base.
Creativity is key Some of the most successful promotions marketed through LivingSocial have been for little-known properties packaged in a creative way, without stepping over into acting as a principal,
“7% of ecommerce will be done via mobile devices by 2013” Source: eBay
“25% of daily deal packages that are resold, sell for more than the original price” Source: CityPockets
Stafford is keen to stress. When his sales team matched Down Hall Hotel in Essex with an events company to offer murder mystery-themed weekends, almost 2,000 room nights were sold across three promotions. “While there is always a call to action around price, it’s less severe than what often goes on in the mainstream industry,” says Stafford, a former online travel agent and Tui employee. Being a “social business” does not
mean your holiday promotion will go viral, so the ethos at LivingSocial is to
“offer something exciting every day”, as well as a varied range of about 25 “escapes” per week. Bearing in mind what it costs to regularly email
Top left: Brian Harrison (kgbdeals), Tobias Tschotsch (Groupon UK)
and Peter Briffett (Living Social UK) Top right: Groupon UK’s Roy Manga Left: LivingSocial Escape’s Nick Stafford
millions of people, increasing saturation of the market, and the £27 million loss posted by Groupon in its first stock market results, social travel brands are constantly looking for more ways to get browsers and purchasers talking to each other. The “me+3” mechanic works well for LivingSocial Escapes for example, offering users the “deal” for free if they share it with three friends who go on to purchase. Stafford explains: “The aim is to generate comments like “I wouldn’t normally do this, but I just had to share...”
and to encourage sharing without being pushy.” Offering free places may not be possible for most firms but there is something to be said for straying from a conventional prize draw incentive. Reclaiming lapsed customers is also high on the agenda, through personalised email marketing messages saying “We miss you, have 10% off your next purchase...”, for example. The next phase is
rolling out loyalty reward schemes like Groupon Rewards and LivingSocial Plus in the UK, which users pay a monthly fee to be a member of in return for exclusive invites and site credit.
Looking forward As sales of hospitality packages through social commerce sites continue to grow, it is inevitable that they will feature more traditional, year-round holiday content. What an independent UK agent or operator cannot compete with is their ability to promote an offer in several different markets at once, although B2B partnership sites such as the Berlin-based
dealgecco.com may solve this one day. And now LivingSocial is bridging the gap between the online and offline worlds, having opened a six-storey events venue in Washington DC where it hosts wine-and-art classes and pop-up restaurants. It is increasingly difficult to define how daily deal portals fit into the travel sphere but the fact that they are largely staffed by people with travel trade experience is no doubt key to their success within it. The recent ruling by the
Advertising Standards Agency that Groupon improve quality checks on its experiences was not based on the Groupon Getaways brand, but it highlights the particular customer service challenges for such a rapidly growing business. This is where an independent travel-seller wins of course, and why they are in hot demand. Whether you think it’s a good or a bad thing, both Groupon Getaways and LivingSocial Escapes are recruiting, and flash sales of travel experiences seem here to stay.
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