Business Insider’s Evan Britton’s article How Entrepreneurs Can Cash-In On The Groupon Fad provides a glimpse of the future of hyperlocal marketing by listing five new opportunities inspired by Groupon. I’ll list these methods and expand on Mr. Britton’s list with concrete examples:

1. Create a blog.

The blog platform, particularly Wordpress, is ideal for creating a customized website that can be leveraged as a community media resource to display and distribute daily deals. Only two industries create “hyperlocal” blogs – new journalism and real estate. New media companies like Patch.com and Examiner.com recruit locals to report on their community. Real estate professionals are beginning to understand that it’s more important to engage their community by providing community media and commentary instead of pushing real estate talk to an audience who is not listening to, or even cringing at their message.

2. Build a deals directory

Any web service that curates and organizes information can be called a directory. The proliferation of Daily Deals services needs a directory to find them. TheDealMap organizes and geolocates aggregated deals onto maps:

It’s simple to create ticker tapes of Daily Deals on Facebook to aggregate a community audience for deals:

3. Consult

Local advertising agencies will add coupon campaigns to their service portfolio. All these social media managers can add value to campaigns by delivering social media marketing solutions that enhance campaigns and create buzz.

4. Affiliate

Competition is fierce as Groupon clones proliferate in every city. Only Groupon, LivingSocial and few other couponing systems can finance and field national sales forces. The rest will need to work with local affiliate media partners in order to scale. It’s been well documented that local media needs revenue sources, and couponing fits as an affiliate advertising vehicle.

5. Start your own deal site

With all the Groupon clones, there’s no need to build your own couponing system. White label coupon systems – Adility and Wantsa are two – will enable local media companies and networks to develop coupon campaigns with their advertising clients. More interesting, both above companies also focus on providing a service to syndicate coupons across a network of media sites, so coupon campaigns can extend their reach through them.

That’s because crowdsourcing always requires critical mass adoption to be perceived as statistically relevant. A 4-star restaurant with 100 Yelp reviews is deemed far more credible than a 5-star restaurant with 3 reviews. The inevitable massive adoption of Facebook Places / Foursquare and soundbite “tips” will turn paragraph length Yelp and Trip Advisor reviews into heavy reading. Soundbites are as credible as lengthy reviews simply because there are more of them and they are up-to-date.

All local businesses are fair game. Retailers will not only amass lots of commentary and tips, but their best or worst employees will also be praised or damned just because it’s easy to thumb type a few words. And consumers will ask for the best by name. The DMV might set up a wait time feed that automatically updates on Places. In real estate, open houses will receive instant feedback from lookers. Applications galore.

Long form commentary – blogs, books, research – still serve the same purposes for explanation and analysis (you’re reading this after all). It’s just that most people would rather do this in short form.

Groupon’s nationwide rollout of $25 for $50 worth of Gap merchandise got a lot of mainstream media airplay and sold 441,000 Groupons, netting $11 million. The net effect is the mainstream buzz that introduces Groupon to America. The “daily deal” is becoming institutionalized as the advertising medium most compatible with the Great Recession.

Here is what the Groupon + Gap deal will spark:

• More national deals. Think Office Depot, Best Buy, Home Depot, or Apple Stores where the sale of higher ticket items over $100 can justify a $25 for $50 deal. Groupon and other coupon players can layer on national deals on a limited basis so they don’t alienate their local business client base.
• National and regional retail chains now have a medium for brand revival. Can a loss leader Groupon strategy create enough traffic to generate supplementary sales, or even stave off seasonal financial problems from the one time coupon receipts?
• Shopping malls and local business associations can now systematically round robin “daily deals” among their stores in order to deliver foot traffic.
• The spawning of national deals that don’t require redemption at the physical retail level. Think infomercial products, Dell PCs and other electronics, and odd lot inventory.

Groupon has shown they are more than just a local restaurant play, and it’s frankly more market efficient to produce one national Gap campaign to complement the hundreds/thousands of local campaigns they do daily as their bread and butter.

One fallout about the Gap campaign is the prospect that everybody will be wearing the same Gap clothes this fall!

The long awaited announcement of Facebook Places this afternoon sure was anticlimactic. The “Check-in” is now institutionalized, and the masses of 500,000,000+ Facebook members can now enjoy what 2 million Foursquare members have been doing. But that was what was expected; the gorilla just tossed its hat into the ring.

The main function Facebook brings to the party is ubiquity:

Ever gone to a show, only to find out afterward that your friends were there too? With Places, you can discover moments when you and your friends are at the same place at the same time. (from Facebook blog)

“Checking in” has essentially been a kind of mindless activity, but its social context makes it meaningful within a massive network, like college students.

The locational media – Yelp, Foursquare and Gowalla, perhaps even Twitter – now become relegated to being the worker bees developing new applications and functionality for the check-ins Facebook will ultimately dominate, just as they are doing with “likes”. With the new Facebook Location API also being launched today, it seems natural for mobile app developers to build for the massive audience of Facebook. It’s up to the locational apps to differentiate themselves with specific functionality – Yelp has business reviews, Foursquare has branding deals with movie studios and other corporations, Groupon has local discount coupons.

The next step – watch Yelp, Foursquare and Gowalla double down on efforts to build the locational commerce applications that provide rewards for check-ins. Groupon has proven the revenue model associated with couponing (Forbes claims it’s the fastest growing company ever), and it’s low hanging fruit.

Mashable unveils startup GroupTabs, which leverages group check-ins to “tip” a deal like half price drinks inside a business. The application is what was once called a “mashup” by using Foursquare and Twitter APIs to check-in and adding the tipping coupon feature of Groupon.

The business concept works because it feeds into the social need for the meetup and the financial incentive of a discount. Merchants win by activating viral marketing campaigns that brings customers who know each other into their business (and come back because they had a good time). It’s a fun app.

GroupTabs can monetize each merchant campaign conceivably with a set fee per checkin. Each single campaign won’t cost the merchant very much so the service will be easy to sell, and the business model seems like it will scale across bars and nightclubs across America. The aggregate revenue model is powerful because campaigns are repeatable, just like a subscription if you can imagine bars running a Tuesday Tipping night special.  I think it works.

GroupTabs portends three trends:

1) the building of location based apps off Foursquare and Twitter APIs elevates both as principal platforms, and make other stand alone location based apps like Gowalla less relevant.

2) The melding of online social networks and the physical worlds of bar life, conferences and the “where’s the party?” crowd gives meaning to “checking in”, and will accelerate trickle down adoption to folks who haven’t yet embraced social networking.

3) The trickle down use of location based apps like GroupTabs to trigger local deals will further define and position Twitter and Foursquare as hyperlocal services. Your “followers” were once scattered all over the country, they’ll soon be localized.

1. @earlybird is positioned as another Groupon/LivingSocial/BuywithMe/etc., and couponing is becoming commoditized. So far, @earlybird hasn’t differentiated itself to be anything other than a Groupon clone.
2. Brands can leverage Twitter (the platform) itself to develop perishable deal opportunities; companies or ad agencies don’t need to contract with Twitter for additional advertising leverage, they can contract more efficiently with the appropriate media channel. Twitter remains the platform but isn’t necessarily the ad distribution media. For example, real time perishable deals, like same day hotel rooms or air travel, or concert tickets, are generally localized opportunities. It makes more sense to work with hyperlocal media channels and their Twitter feeds to offer these kinds of deals to a market.
3. Following up on 2), Twitter and @earlybird are essentially national channels. @earlybird will be best positioned to offer deals for global, not local coverage. Although Rajaraman offers examples on how brands can potentially create on the fly campaigns, it’s hard to imagine any ad agency or corporation being able to sign off quickly on an instant national deals. Again, on the fly deals work best on a local level.

Couponing drives mobile applications by delivering tangible consumer financial benefit together with ease of use  (coupons are storable data that reside on the device, no need to have scissors handy).

Here is where mobile couponing is headed:

1. Grey market coupon marketplaces:

A secondary “Stubhub” market for Groupon coupons is developing with DealsGoRound and CoupRecoup. Since coupons are storable data, not eBay products, coupons can conceivably be delivered from seller to buyer instantly with Paypal approval. In a future scenario, consumers will be able to find a destination restaurant and search through the grey markets for a coupon while waiting for the waiter.

2. Real time coupon advertising systems:

Coupon advertising can be developed for real time distribution, similar in concept to the Japanese build to order manufacturing process. Ski resorts facing lean crowds due to poor skiing conditions will be able to instantly distribute 1/2 price ski lift tickets on the evening of a snowfall to entice impulse skiers onto empty chairlifts. Restaurants with few dinner bookings will be able to distribute coupons throughout the afternoon usable instantly.

The best real time coupon advertising engine will be built as a marketplace like eBay with functionality that allows local businesses to post their deals quickly and monitor them in real time.

3. “Minority Report” Ad Billboards

The movie Minority Report demonstrated customized audio ads targeted directly to passing pedestrians, and in the movie, personalized to the identified person. In June, a company erected 27 digital billboards in Tokyo train stations that can digitally identify the sex and age of the onlooker and serve ads based on the profile.

The 2002-released movie made one Slate reviewer cringe at advertisement bombardment and the implied lack of privacy at the time, but shift to 2010, and societal adoption of personal transparency on the social media starts to make Minority Report ads enticing, particularly if consumers can save money. It’s like finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk.

The future delivery method for pedestrians can be txt, alert via a mobile app, as well as audio or personalized billboard presentation. The startup that can aggregate geolocated coupons and develop effective non-intrusive delivery methods (I don’t want to hear 10 beeps per block) will win.

4. Consumer demand systems

The big problem with search engines is simply their inability to efficiently find the product or service one wants to buy at the best price, particularly on a local level. Try googling “tennis racquet sale in San Francisco“; you’ll see that it’s impossible to find a local sports store with a sale going on. The startup that creates a data system that can access and catalog local business inventory from major chains (or even scrape chains’ online circulars) could deliver instant consumer solutions to shopping needs. For example, a query for a “Prince tour diablo tennis racquet” would return sales data (or coupons) from participating sporting goods chains and make it easier to find the best deal.

5. Real time inventory management on time-sensitive goods

This is the enterprise variation of 2.) Real time coupon ad systems. Time-sensitive, or perishable goods include airplane seats, hotel rooms, ski chair lifts, and concert seats that optimally are filled to 100% capacity. Mobile couponing systems can provide real time inventory management that gradually discounts based on time to expiration. For example, concert tickets would be discounted after the concert starts for impulse buyers. These systems would essentially reward last minute buyers with discounted rates, instead of socking them with highest possible fees. It allows consumers to drive into a city at 10:00pm and find the best hotel room deal.

Why might this work? People now schedule in real time and time flexibility is valuable. If the business systems can cater to consumer real time needs, it will not only foster good will, but it will also efficiently increase occupancy rates. Think about this… wouldn’t you love an application that really offered great last minute deals?

Related articles:

The New DIY Advertising

How Groupon forces Mainstream Media to Adopt the Couponing Ad Model

Local Coupon Aggregation

Brand Advertising doesn’t Fulfill Real Time Consumer Needs

The evolution of social media as game changing marketing media is finally being evidenced by companies like Ford and Audi, which are both using Facebook to launch their new Ford Explorer and their Audi A7 today.

Like the Madmen who redefined brand advertising in the 60’s, a new corps of social media marketers is finally evolving within the major ad agencies after years of taunts that they either didn’t get it or more likely, didn’t want to jeopardize their established lucrative hold on corporate advertising budgets. It’s a reactive strategic move to remain relevant.

Social media marketing has proven to be far more amenable to ad hoc DIY solutions than traditional ad campaigns that require more extensive creative and media placement expertise than a Facebook page. More companies will develop their social media campaigns in-house because it’s the interaction between the company and its customers that counts, not as much between the ad agency and the customer.

At the local level, social media – based marketing applications will be more influential because small business didn’t use ad agencies. DIY advertising solutions are being developed by Adility and Wildfire that facilitate businesses in building promotional coupon campaigns. Using these tools, small business can create their own campaigns and solicit their own “media buys” like WildRivers in Irvine is doing with independent Breaking Irvine News:

Related articles:

Brand advertising doesn’t fulfill consumers’ real time needs

Local business now have marketing options, and the sales game has completely changed. Pre-social media, nobody liked getting a call from a salesperson, now it’s the kiss of death to call a client and ask “how about an ad campaign this month?”.

GannettLocal is Gannett’s new positional initiative to engage local business by offering up their new service as marketing consultants. Simply put, mainstream media needs to maintain their perch in a marketing campaign. By filling out an on-site marketing survey, GannettLocal recommends a template strategic marketing plan that ensures Gannett’s services get a piece of the budget.

For example, if a small business has $1,000/month marketing budget, Gannett Local may recommend the following resource allocation:

If a small business has zero marketing budget, Gannett Local may recommend:

Conclusion:

Sales tactics now require value propositions to even get their foot in the door. Mainstream media is retooling its sales forces into consulting forces. It’s a sea change in the role of sales, and the reason why everybody’s title is advisor, consultant or strategic planner.

Google is talking about interactive video ads at this weekend’s Allen & Co. conference. Today, Twitvid is launching its video advertising platform over Twitter (press release). What’s important to know about video is that there is already an institutional history of the video format in the form of the :30 television spot.

Like television, the social media will act as broadcast media that will distribute the “video spot” over the channels – Facebook, Twitter – that are replacing television eyeballs. Even more promising are the upcoming geolocational marketing opportunities for local merchants who will be able to upload video, coupon deals and other content like menus on mobile applications like Yelp and Foursquare. Those first mover merchants who develop compelling media content will be rewarded with Facebook “likes”, the new currency for customer attraction and search results.

We’re now reaching the stage where the instant video upload for business starts to make sense. Remember the old Seesmic video conversation platform that Loic LeMeur took down last summer 2009 because he concluded video conversation adoption by the public was limited? I agree carrying on a video conversations may still attract a limited audience, but the ease of uploading video from iPhones etc. now makes it much more easier to develop video messages on the fly. For example, it would be easy for a chef to iPhone video the day’s dinner offerings and broadcast/post it via a social media distribution system like Posterous across the restaurant’s Twitter and Facebook feeds each afternoon:

It takes time for consumers to understand and adopt new media. The concept of Twitter was alien to most, until Oprah made Twitter accessible in April, 2009. The use of adhoc video for business messaging is still alien to those who believe video production quality standards are high hurdles, but pioneering businesses will soon figure out that audiences are more interested in the real time message being delivered in “living color”.