With tightened budgets but the desire to still go out to eat, shop, and drink, consumers are finding coupons all the more attractive. And with this year’s geo-location trend, social coupons make sense.
The Coupon & Offers Craze
Groupon has been growing rapidly. Groupon sells coupons such as a $50 coupon for $25 from Nordstrom Rack. The catch is that a certain number of people must buy-in for the coupon to be activated.
Foursquare allows business owners to give rewards to those who check-in. In some cases, the mayor (the person who has checked in most) receives freebies or discounts. In others, businesses give discounts when users hit milestone check-ins like 5 or 10.
Facebook Places, too, allows businesses to create special check-in offers with Facebook Deals.
Yelp has long given business owners the option of including coupons and discounts in their Yelp listings. And now Yelp has joined the check-in offer trend. Head over to Mashable for a great article on how it works.
This new feature is the obvious next step for Yelp; to remain competitive with the rapid adoption of Foursquare (now boasting 4.5 million users), the domination of location-based services, and the great appeal these social offers have for the user, it was bound to happen at some point.
Yelp Versus Foursquare
As a geo-location user, I like Foursquare badges and the potential for offers and coupons extended to those that check-in. The game element is also fun. In Seattle last week, I checked in at Trader Joes and was notified that other users were on-premises.
Until now, there wasn’t a viable reason to check-in on Yelp. Yet I prefer using Yelp to seek out new businesses. Here’s why:
- It is organized, easy to find what I want, and the mobile app is clean and intuitive. It has to be: seeking out new spots is the basis behind Yelp — it’s what helps the social site thrive.
- It is integrated with Google Maps; clicking on the “Directions” button allows you to easily navigate from your current location to the business. I have lost count of how many times I’ve used this feature.
- Ratings and reviews help me decide where to go. This is why business owners should be aware of and regularly monitor their listings on social sites like Yelp.
Check-in offers through Yelp make using the site’s location-based check-in service more appealing because it encourages Yelp users to announce their presence and in turn rewards them with a potential incentive offer set by business owners. You’ll now find me checking in more frequently via Yelp for precisely this reason.
The next step will be for Yelp to display how many people have checked-in using a system somewhat similar to that of Foursquare. This includes the following for each listing: personal check-ins, the number of users who have checked-in, and the overall number of check-ins. Adding this will provide users with another decision-making metric: popularity.
Why not Facebook Places? When Facebook allows you to check-in via their platform and it feeds the action to Yelp and Foursquare, I may pay more heed.
Evolution of the Check-In
We are likely to see the geo-location landscape change rapidly over the next year as consumers continue to join the movement. Don’t be surprised if the sites listed above all incorporate push-notifications by 2012, prompting users to check-in when they visit a store or restaurant.
We’re also likely to see apps pop up that pinpoint where our friends are on the map. This relates to my privacy discussion earlier — to be successful, users must feel comfortable announcing their location at all times to their friends. Such an app will need to include a selection feature where the user manually selects which friends can see their location, as well as allowing an “off the grid” mode.
For the biggest of socialites, check-in will go one of two ways. Users will develop loyalty and affinity toward a specific platform, be it Facebook, Yelp or Foursquare, or they’ll buy in to a mobile app or site with multi-checkin capabilities such as Check.in, available at m.check.in using your iPad, iPhone or Android.
Geolocation is only poised to grow. Coupons and special offers make it more appealing for those on the fence about whether to join in.