The Revinate Blog

Make Room for Google Offers

Groupon. LivingSocial. Mamapedia. The list goes on and on. But let's add Google Offers to the mix. Launched in Portland to start, Google Offers works just like the others. You subscribe to your city's offer using your email, and every day you are alerted of a new deal at a 50% discount.

Since Google has a close relationship with so many businesses thanks to its other products, I imagine it will have an easy time wrangling up great offers. And who knows what's next... perhaps it will integrate with Google Maps to remind you where your offers are when you're within a few-block radius. Considering the many unused Groupons and Living Social deals I have, that would be a great value-add service to launch. Let's see what happens.

Groupon Now

Next month Groupon will be rolling out a new mobile service called 'Groupon Now'. Unlike traditional Groupon deals, these deals might only be valid for a couple of hours and will be shown to consumers near the location after they select either 'I'm Hungry' or 'I'm Bored' from the application on their mobile phones.

Hotel bars and restaurants looking to drive traffic and reach people in the vicinity should definitely think about running a trial offer to see whether it helps get people in the door and whether those people are likely to return or recommend it to their friends.

Spend a minute asking guests whether they would've come in without the offer and whether they will return or recommend the restaurant to others. Or, for a more quantitative assessment, many people have looked at ROI calculators for Groupon offers. If you need help determining whether it's right for you, check out this article or this one.