Groupon-Like Functionality for Facebook

If you're in the business of selling a product or service online in large quantities, according to Mashable there's a new Facebook application coming online that allows brands to attach Groupon-like promotions to their page. These promotions allow brands to offer a discounted product or service, but only if the amount of people that sign up for the deal hits a critical mass.

The app, Group Deals, was created by Wildfire Interactive, and allows users to set the value of the deal, define the threshold needed to activate it and link it to their e-commerce system through their own pre-defined discount codes. It also allows brands to define deal terms and conditions and customize the appearance of the page using CSS. I haven't seen it in action, but it looks amazing in theory and concept.

Apps tied in to Facebook automatically have a massive, well defined user base of 500,000,000, and the connectivity via the Facebook Open Graph allows for relatively effortless viral promotions. It's the first really legitimate shot at widespread sales via social media. There's also a really great opportunity to see some creative campaigns from major brands that are focused on promoting sales directly through these Group Buys.

Image courtesy of Mashable

by Garret Ohm

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Monday Marketing Link Love 4.5

It's time for another edition of Monday Marketing Link Love, a place where we share some of our favorite links from the past week or so with our marketing friends. Let's get right to it, shall we?

Adobe Kuler: Whether you're picking a color palette for a new retail store, a new brochure or the colors that will represent your brand, Kuler's got you covered. It's a free web-based application that helps you generate color themes that work together.

by Garret Ohm

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Monday Marketing Link Love 3.12

Today I'm starting a new, semi-regular feature here on the TSG blog called Monday Marketing Link Love. These posts will be aimed squarely at marketing directors, CMOs, marketing VPs, and communications professionals who are looking to stay up on the latest marketing trends, tactics, resources, etc., and they'll feature several of the marketing links that we here at The Sutter Group have come across the previous week that think you shouldn't miss. Each week we'll hand pick a few essential clicks and give you a short description of what you'll find. Without further ado, here's the 3.12.2010 edition:

Printfriendly - Printfriendly is a site that allows you to turn any webpage into a printer-friendly page, nearly instantly saving paper, time and ink. Not only that, but it first gives you a "preview" option which allows you to delet the sections of the page you don't want to print. Want to check out what this blog looks like using Printfriendly? Click here.

Obviously we think these links are amazing and worthy of sharing, so by all means, use the share button at the bottom of this blog post to share this post with your social networks. That way, we can all have a little Monday Marketing Link Love.

by Garret Ohm

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Starbucks Doesn’t Deliver. Just Plug and Pour.

If you're using social media and specifically Twitter, chances are you've heard one of the people you follow on any giving morning Tweeting something along the lines of, "I'm soooooooo tired this morning. I wish Starbucks delivered." While there are no plans to change their business model to include delivery, they did recently prove that they've been listening to their customers by responding with a Tweet with a link to this image:

We've written quite a lot about how powerful social media can be as a tool to engage with your audience in meaningful ways, and this is a classic example of how it can be done right. By listening to their loving customers and responding personally in a creative and playful way, Starbucks has really shown that they take their customers wants and needs into consideration, even if they can't directly satisfy them. Plus, they reaped the benefit of the tons of buzz this promotion created.

Well played, @starbucks, well played!

by Garret Ohm

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User Experience and Corporate Decision Making

As @c2austin pointed out yesterday, Fast Company's Twitter stream recently rehashed an ongoing debate about website user experience design in large corporations and the potential havoc having too many departments involved in the design process can have. The Fast Company article, which you can read in its entirety here, describes how a peeved designer wrote an open letter to American Airlines blasting such a high-profile company for having a website that is incredibly difficult from a usability standpoint. He wrote:

If I was running a company with the distinction and history of American Airlines, I would be embarrassed--no ashamed--to have a Web site with a customer experience as terrible as the one you have now...Your Web site is abusive to your customers, it is limiting your revenue possibilities, and it is permanently destroying the brand and image of your company in the mind of every visitor.

To prove his point, he even donated some time and offered up a solution, seen here as compared to the original:

His open letter actually received a response from a member of the user experience team at American Airlines explaining that, unfortunately, it's not their lack of abilities, but rather the sheer size of the company and numerous corporate layers and that inhibit them from delivering a positive user experience.

Sad. But true. It highlights a problem that we wrestle with often when clients come to us to deliver a new interactive experience for their business: Too many cooks in the kitchen. While at times we understand the need for more than one party within a company to be responsible for making design decisions, we also feel strongly that the best designs come from a clear, singular vision. This vision, combined with a solid understanding of user wants/needs, and an interactive design team adept at creating the best possible solution will always result in a stronger end product than anything that comes from design by committee.

by Garret Ohm

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