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Groupon’s Top Secret SEO Strategy Revealed

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About Groupon Inc, Early Days Before The Top Secret SEO Startegy

LogoGroupon Inc. founded in 2008 in Chicago is a global social commerce marketplace operating in more than 45 countries. The online commerce company has a business model of marketing super deals of local businesses and triggering demand. Groupon works with the percentage model; it takes about 50% cut of revenues from vouchers (deals offered on www.gorupon.com) bought by the customers through its online promotions. The retailer keeps the rest of the 50%.

The recipe rests on “It is a deal of the day” concept. The e-commerce portal markets the deals with aggressive online marketing campaigns. It is a win-win model for everyone involved at the lowest risk. The buyers benefit from discounted prices, whereas the merchants offering the deal gets a great advertising boost eventually increasing the number of buyers. Once a minimum number of purchases are made with the due to Groupon’s advertising boost, the deal of profit sharing between the retailer and Groupon becomes valid. Groupon and the Retailer share the profits at 50%.

As on end of March 2015, Groupon has established a business in more than 500 cities worldwide. In the same year, it boasted of nearly 48.1 million active customers with 425,000 active deals globally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRa6ws_z6-Y

Groupon Inc.’s Business Objectives

Groupon has held the badge of the “fastest growing company of all time”. The company grew at a very fast pace and established itself at a level to be able to supposedly decline Google’s $6 billion funding offer.

In few years, the company spread over several countries, but its business model & profitability has remained questionable. However, Groupon has a qualified team handling Customer Support and Social strategy the company struggled with a negative brand image and a low online trust reputation. It has affected company’s overall wealth.

 3.Approach / Strategy Adopted By Groupon

Social commerce sites like Groupon have a reliable model to attract new customers. There is no upfront advertising cost for businesses or paying for clicks, impressions. It does not even require one to commit an up-front budget. Considering the notorious online reputation and the fact the keyword search on Google for Groupon is more with negative words, the company has revamped its Social Media strategy.

To counter the onslaught of sliding revenue Groupon has come up with aggressive Social media presence and advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The company has one primary account, and one local country accounts for the local appeal on the social media. It’s fan following on Twitter (136K+), and Facebook (5M+) is on the rise significantly since 2012, once again.

Groupon Email Marketing

The early success of Groupon is easily attributed to the geographic, products, personal, and lifecycle segmentation strategy. They quickly realized the need to be on top of the Inbox and keep their email campaigns to stay away from becoming another spam. The Groupon Email Campaigns are distinctly fun, subtle smarts, and a great mix of content.

 Groupon Google Adwords Campaign

On Google-Groupon buys, the branded keywords for the deals it advertises with the help of Google. Groupon advertises on Google on behalf of their clients. They promote the deals across search and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others.

Groupon On Facebook

On Facebook Groupon, also has an app for its followers where the daily deals areseen based on what fans had earlier liked to appear on the user’s account.The most famous  viral campaign of Facebook in the recent time has been that of Groupon’s Banana Bunker Viral campaign.

 Banana bunker 2

 Groupon On YouTube

On YouTube, again Groupon has 4000000+ followers with local YouTube channels dedicated to individual countries. The content on YouTube channel is spread over the introduction of new products, testimonials, and local merchant success stories.

 Groupon on Twitter

Groupon resides a lot of value to content marketing and has their website publishing country specific blogs every week. The blog covers interesting articles on the deals of the day or a presentation of a member of the Groupon’s team. Groupon also used a network of paid bloggers to promote the deals and provide links to Groupon from these paid blogs.

Results Achieved

Though Groupon’s rise as “fastest growing company ever” has been steady, the flip side has been the speed of business that had left a lot to learn on the  service refining stage. The company also has a competitor on its heel “LivingSocial” making the easy business a difficult proposition to sustain. The online negative publicity that often comes due to operational side of the service delivery has dented the company’s reputation.

However, a push on social strategy on mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging have started giving results with an exponential increase in the fan following. The blogging medium has allowed the company to respond and clarify critical issues to let customers know their side of the story. This has helped to build the trust back amongst the consumers.

Learnings

Groupon has learnt that the power of social media is infinite and while it can give rise to a quick success sustaining the success needs special efforts. The company had smooth sailing on the initial Email Marketing campaigns. However, the standalone campaigns often go flat unless augmented with other popular social mediums. The focus on social media strategy needs to be unwavering, steady, and innovative. The Top Secret SEO Strategy of Groupon is an amalgation of research, expertise, innovation and above all desire to stay on top of the stack.

Video & Photo Credits: YouTube & www.bananabunker.com

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Sujata Singh

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