Never a Lack of Ideas

Have We Met Before? The quick-service sandwich and salad restaurant near my office launched two new salads several weeks ago. I have ordered both new salads via the restaurant's online ordering system several times since the salads debuted. So why did I receive an email just yesterday that introduced me to their new salads? I've already met them — many times — and I like them a lot. The store should know this since my online ordering account uses my email address as my username and stores all of my previous orders. I know exactly how this happened: The marketing team at this restaurant decided that it would be a good idea to announce to their customers the arrival of their new salads. So, they whipped up a nice email, gathered all of their email addresses, and clicked "send." Nobody stopped for a minute and asked, "but what if someone regularly orders our new salads? Shouldn't we send that person a different email?" This restaurant should have sent me an...

This is my second post on Groupon's market segmentation strategy. Read the first one here . One Giant Change Groupon made a big change recently: Within each city it serves, the company is now using customer addresses to offer different "deals of the day" on its website and through its emails. On July 13th, 2010, Groupon sent its Chicagoland customers one of four different emails that each contained a unique deal of the day (three of the emails appear on the right). The deals were for organizations located in Naperville, Long Grove, Gilman, and Chicago. The corresponding side deal of the day and newly-created "deals nearby" in each email comprised the three other deals. I received the offer for the establishment in Naperville because that's where I live. My co-workers received the other offers via email based on where they live. The Importance of This Change This marks a noticeable shift in the way Groupon has done business up to this point and it shows that...

Who's Who? Every realtor's advertisements and business cards look exactly the same. To make one, simply combine these elements: A photo of a smiling realtor A quote about caring about the home buyer or seller--something like, "putting you first" or "because I care" The name of the brokerage firm Contact information Realtors earn the bulk of their new clients from referrals, so the business cards created with the elements listed above work just fine. All a referral needs to know is the realtor's contact information and what she looks like so that when they meet it will feel a little familiar. Standing out in a Crowd But why would a realtor use the same approach in her advertisements as she does in her business cards? A realtor's ad on a billboard, in a newspaper, and in the yellow pages is meant to attract customers that can't be reached by word of mouth via a referral. If a realtor is going to stand out among the sea of similarity that comprises ...