Loyalty - the achilles heel of Groupon (and Facebook knows it)

If Google are willing to try and pay a reported $6bn for a company which is little more than two years old then it must be doing something interesting - and Groupon is certainly generating some interest.

Depending on how you look at it, Groupon is either the hottest trend since...er... the last one, or is simply a purveyor of local discount deals via email.

However, if "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" then with both Google and Amazon looking to have a bit of the discount deals pie by each creating (or buying into) their own version, there must be something to it.

Group buying is nothing new, back in the (first) dot-com boom years there were a number of group buying start-ups, but these failed to gain traction despite significant above the line spend. One of the reasons for this is that these early pioneers focused on selling branded goods like a standard e-commerce site, but would lower the price based on the number of committed sales. In reality however, they would have bought the goods beforehand and so the "group discount" wasn't negotiated based on the group itself. Even if it was, mainstream retailers would already be buying significantly more volume of the same item and so beating their prices was hard.

So whats changed? Quite simply, relevance - based on location, timing and friends.

These offers are typically from local businesses, with subscribers selecting their chosen city to receive offers from. The offers are distributed via email and with most subscribers now having always on internet access via smart phones or tablets, the offers become timely, with users able to react quickly to get the deal. Finally, social media means both the offers and the offer provider and getting more visibility as subscribers quickly push them out to friends.

Current group buying leader Groupon describes their service as providing "valuable new customers, guaranteed". Going on to say:-

These subscribers are not looking for “the perfect deal.” They’re looking for the perfect excuse to try something new. We get them to your business, and you bring them back again and again.

Quite clearly, Groupon see themselves as an acquisition channel. A way for smaller brands or independent retailers to cut through the clutter of both digital and traditional marketing channels, many of which are inaccessible to smaller merchants, accessing customers directly with an attention grabbing offer.

The issue with this though is something which Groupon seem to know, but possibly don't recognise when they say "We get them in [..] you bring them back again and again". They may drive customer acquisition in the first instance, but it's clearly up to the merchant to get the customer to come back - and this requires a retention strategy, something Groupon is simply ignoring.

Facebook on the other hand is not known to miss a trick.

As reported in Forbes, they are testing a new feature called "Buy With Friends" which allows users to publish a purchase within their newsfeed and for friends to be able to click on this and purchase it themselves with a discount. The feature will let a user "unlock" a deal and then share that same deal or discount with other friends who can take advantage of the fact that it's already been unlocked. In tests, Facebook reported that more than 50% of people chose to share their purchase.

Currently it only works with in-app purchases using Facebook Credits, but it's easy to see how this could be expanded to real worlds goods and services.

As I discussed in a previous post, there is a trend now for retailers linking their e-commerce activities directly into Facebook, something we've discussed in more detail in a white paper called "The Future of Relationship Marketing". Joining the dots, if retailers linked their e-commerce into Facebook this would allow them (large and small) to both publicise purchases by existing customers and to push deals to prospects.

The combination of Facebook Places, Deals, "Like" and "Buy With Friends" provides a unique array of services to merchants with an pre-existing audience of 600m people. It won't take much for Facebook to combine these in a way which competes head-on with Groupon, but adds longer term value through the ability to track these interactions and build further contact - linking the initial acquisition to ongoing retention and loyalty.

You could argue that Groupon shouldn't be the only one worried here - every loyalty agency will (should) also be looking over their shoulder at the fast approaching Facebook juggernaut. The winners will be those embracing it to drive even greater value for their clients and customers.

ASDA launch a loyalty programme?

UK supermarket retailer ASDA has publicly stated a number of times that it doesn't believe in loyalty programmes. CEO Andy Bond famously said "You can't buy loyalty with plastic points" and their website actually has a page describing why they don't do "loyalty", saying:-

At Asda we reward all of our customers for their loyalty by charging low prices every day of the week, all year round.

ASDA has always prided itself on being an Every Day Low Price retailer. In a article last year, ASDA said:-

EDLP is very much at the heart of our pricing strategy. [The aim for 2010 is] sucking out the promotional money on offer from our suppliers [in order to] invest all of it in lowering prices across the board.

The problem with an EDLP strategy though is three-fold:-

1. Hard to prove - Will consumers really believe you when you state you have the lowest prices. With so many deals around, so many different brands within the same category and so much HiLo style pricing strategies even within EDLP retailers, consumer are confused about what a low price really is.
2. Lacks Engagement - Even if a customer sees initial savings on their first shop, this quickly becomes "normal" on subsequent shops meaning the whole EDLP strategy becomes forgotten. It may work initially for acquisition, but fails in the long term when it comes to retention.
3. Encourages dis-loyalty - When EDLP are mixed with sales promotion activities this actively creates dis-loyalty. It plays to a promotional audience who will shop around and only buy products on special offer. Long term, rather than EDLP locking consumers in with a trusted promise, the sales promotion activity simply dilutes it.

When reviewing various retail loyalty programmes a couple of years ago, COLLOQUY stated “A marketing strategy focused solely on sale prices and promotions not only faces diminishing returns, but can also actually breed disloyal customers [..] retail marketers have an opportunity to shift their focus from EDLP towards loyalty drivers that build true customer engagement, larger transactions and improved margins.”

Despite all this talk about not doing loyalty programmes and how an EDLP strategy in some way doesn't fit with loyalty, have ASDA in fact actually launched one?

ASDA had recently strengthened its Every Day Low Prices (EDLP) strategy with a Price Guarantee. Not just a "refund the difference" guarantee, but a 10% less guarantee.

They state "We'll guarantee your comparable grocery shopping is 10% cheaper at ASDA or we'll give you the difference".

As an example they say:-

Your comparable grocery shop is £110 at ASDA, £100 at Tesco, £111 at Morrisons, £125 at Sainsbury's and £130 at Waitrose. Tesco are cheapest. 10% cheaper than Tesco's £100 comparable grocery shop is £90. As such in total you'll receive a voucher for £20.00 to ensure your comparable grocery shop is 10% cheaper at ASDA.

This is a bold promise.

Of course there are those who point out potential issues with this such as the breadth of products covered. Whilst 15,000 products are compared, about 10% of products are deemed "unique to the retailer" and are not included.

However in a recent article in Which? where they tested this promise, it did deliver (even if 50% of products couldn't be compared with Morrisons). Although ASDA were the cheapest overall, they were not 10% cheaper and so they gave a refund.

What's different about this programme for ASDA though is that they now have the potential to both provide every day low prices and to build increased customer engagement - and here's why.

ASDA have made it really easy to check prices after a shop using their online website or in-store using their iPhone app and as part of this process the customer can register their email address.

And there we have it - they have created a loyalty programme.

They're connecting purchase data to customer data, creating the ability to run a loyalty programme. This isn't a points programme, it's a uniquely ASDA loyalty programme. But it is a loyalty programme.

There are even customer rewards in the form of the 10% money back and this bit is quite clever. Using this scheme ASDA don't need to be the overall lowest price all of the time, they just need to be low. Non-loyal customers pay the sticker price, but loyal customers can essentially be refunded (or rewarded) any difference. By flexing this margin they'll be able to manage short-term benefit versus long term engagement.

This ability to link transactional data to individual customers will also give ASDA increasing insight on their customer base and allow them to begin mining this data in ways which retailers like Tesco and Sainsburys now take for granted.

Finally, It creates a reason for customers to further interact with the retailer online and on the move, continually reinforcing the ASDA price promise.

There are many ways to improve this programme to make it work harder, but hats off to ASDA. I think they may have the start of an interesting and powerful EDLP loyalty scheme - even if they don't like the word loyalty.

Loyalty in 2011 - A marriage of location, gaming and social

Predicting where things will be in the next 12 months is notoriously difficult as you don't know what you don't know, and an unexpected innovation can pop up at any time. However as respected journalist and technologist John Battelle said in his blog recently about the "next big thing":-

Often times what's directly in front of you is, in fact, the next big thing.

Something however that doesn't need any amount of prediction is that there will be a peak in the sales of commemorative tea-cups, plates, tea-towels and other Royal memorabilia in 2011. With the recent engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton it seems we'll have the first Royal Wedding in a quarter of a century as well as an additional bank holiday for us Brits to enjoy it. 2011 will be the year of wedding fever, nostalgia, bunting and street parties.

This does neatly segway into another type of engagement however - customer engagement and the associated loyalty we look for from it. What 2011 looks like for loyalty is a little harder to predict - there are no fixed dates or big events. There are though some key trends that we are seeing in the wider market which will all impact on loyalty in some way - taking us one step closer to solidifying that customer engagement into wedded bliss.

No self respecting bride however would consider walking up the aisle without taking account of the Victorian tradition of taking something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue - and neither shall my loyalty predictions.

Something old - Coalition

Coalition programmes have been around for decades, starting with the original stamp collecting programmes. However they have really come of age now with existing programmes going from strength to strength and new programmes rolling out worldwide. Group Aeroplan has recently launched Nectar Italia and Nectar Chile and Loyalty One has taken stake in Dotz in Brazil. Now American Express has bought Loyalty Partners who run PayBack in Germany. Ed Gilligan, American Express Vice Chairman said of the deal:-

“The loyalty coalition model is growing rapidly in many parts of the world [and] Increasingly, consumer decisions about where to shop and how to pay are based on loyalty offerings"

It's not just the growth of new programmes, the existing ones are also gaining strength, with Nectar UK recently following up it's new partner Homebase with leading utility company, British Gas.

This is a high growth, and increasingly competitive area so expect to see more of these programmes coming to a country near you.

Something new - Geo/Local

You can't have failed to miss the explosion of Groupon in 2010. It's meteoric rise culminated in Google trying to buy it for a reported $6bn and when that fell through they then managed to secure $0.5bn in additional funding. While Groupon has an interesting (but not unique) business model, what really makes it interesting is the local merchant aspect. Representing about 1/3 of all sales within the US, these independent retailers are a large pool to fish in, but the challenge has always been economies of scale.

What Google ad-words did for online marketing however, services like Groupon are doing for offline. Barclaycard Freedom is another example of scheme engaging the thousands of small independent retailers and although this has yet to become well established, I think the prospect of creating services that engage local merchants will grow.

The reason for this is simple - relevance. All brands need to be relevant to get cut through and it's much easier to be relevant when the marketing is from a local restaurant or retailer than when it relates to an increasingly sterile national (or global) brand. It also provides larger brands with the ability to target marketing spend more effectively, rewarding spend at locations that have room to grow without simply rewarding spend everywhere.

As Fast Company recently reported on Google's move into this area and it's recent move of Marissa Mayer from Search Products to Geo/Local, Google said

"Marissa is moving over to an exciting new role covering geo/local, which is crucial to our users and the future of Google" (emphasis added)

It's not just Google, Facebook or Foursquare that get this; location is going to be a key variable in our marketing toolkit in 2011.

Something borrowed - Gamification

Well 2010 was when gamification really burst upon the scene and along with it a lot of controversy about the term itself. However, despite the controversy most people agree that the idea of utilising gaming dynamics to help create motivation is worthwhile.

It's interesting that currently early adopters have been either online communities/e-commerce sites or offline automotive companies with both Ford and Nissan using gaming mechanics to improve driving techniques within their electric vehicles.

I think 2011 will see this become more mainstream, with full blown traditional loyalty programmes such as hotel, airline or retail loyalty utilising gaming mechanics explicitly. As I've blogged about a number of times this year, this one trend has the possibility to really lift levels of engagement within a loyalty programme and looking forward, to possibly remove the redemption currency itself (and the associated liability)

You don't get very far however within gaming mechanics before the need to go social kicks in - the real power being based on the bragging rights that come from achievement - and so this is the theme of the final predication.

Something blue - One word. Facebook.

Facebook has come of age. It now has the majority of the Western world assimilated into it's network. It has the lions share of their online attention (recently beating Google) and a depth of information on individuals that rivals Wikileaks.

Retailers like JC Penny and Best Buy are integrating their e-commerce offerings directly into Facebook and brands such as Oreo cookies are now driving all of their traffic to their Facebook page. The reason for this is simple - brands want to fish where the fish are, and Facebook represents a very big ocean.

What's interesting though is not the use of Facebook, brands have been doing this for a while now. It actually that Facebook is for many brands starting to replace their own online offering. I think in 2011 we'll start to see loyalty programmes actually launching their online offering directly within Facebook or at the very least, using Facebook Connect for security.

This will bring three huge benefits. The first is simplicity. Members will be able to login and service their loyalty accounts without any effort - no credentials to remember. The second is interaction. Members will be able to see posts from their loyalty programme directly within their social feeds - no email, no direct mail and much more immediate. The final benefit is social proof - members will be able to see what other friends are doing, what other friends have bought and what other friends have redeemed for.

Combine this with the potential that Facebook brings to virtual goods in the form of social gaming - something that Amex has recently introduced into the Membership Rewards programme and that Citi qucikly followed by introducing them into the Thank You programme - and you have a major change in how loyalty programmes are designed and deployed.

Whether proprietary or coalition loyalty, the marriage of these three main trends of location, gaming and social will change the face of loyalty over the next 12 months.

Image credits: Google T-Shirt, Badges,