Promotion results with Groupon. Practical experience
For several months now I have been developing LangNote.net - a service that allows you to improve a foreign language. The essence of the service is extremely simple: users write a note in a foreign language, the teacher checks it for errors and returns a corrected version with its comments. Edits and comments are highlighted visually for ease of study.
A month ago, I decided to hold an action with a collective purchase service in order to accelerate the promotion of Langnote. After a little analysis, the choice fell on the Groupon, and the action took place on September 16. Already, the results show that such services can be used to significantly accelerate the business at the startup stage. This will be discussed in the article below.
Since the launch of the LangNote service , the main promotion tool has been contextual advertising, which, with a budget of 2000 rubles a week, resulted in an average of 300 clicks to the site, about 30 registrations and two users who started writing notes.
At the first stage of LangNote's work , the main questions for me were: a) the availability of value in a fairly new product for the audience and b) how to manage limited IT resources (choose the right steps for development). To answer these critical questions, writing users were needed in large numbers, and as quickly as possible. The speed of 2 users per week of 1000 rubles for each, of course, was unsatisfactory: I did not want to wait several months.
As services like Groupon claim, they can quickly bring in new customers. Instead, you are required to make a discount of at least 50% of the price of services. I figured out the conditions and decided to hold the action.
The structure of the action was suggested by the groupon manager. The options offered were:
Groupon takes 50% of the collected funds for its services. With this in mind, in all the proposed options, I received less than the cost, i.e. went to minus. The biggest minus came out in the case of a maximum package of 30 notes - about -700 rubles. It was also taken into account that not all purchasers use note packages completely, and real losses will decrease.
You can see how the action looked here . On the day of sales, it hung almost in last place among the new shares of the day. The action was national - that is, in all cities where Grupon is present.
In the presentation, Groupon promises the following benefits:
Let's go in order:
The action hung on the site one day (Friday). By the end of the day, 132 coupons were sold (under the terms of the offer, one coupon in one hand). Most bought expensive packages of 30 notes.
The total revenue amounted to 32,300 rubles, half of which, with 100% activation of coupons, the groupon will transfer to me.
The system allows you to see details about the buyers:
Gender distribution of buyers:
From which cities buyers:
It is too early to draw conclusions: most of those who have just started using the service, and if the radio works, it will be a little later. Nevertheless, you can look at the "likes" on Facebook and VKontakte. On the day of the promotion, LangNote earned about 10 likes there and there. A trifle, but nice!
It is impossible to find out how many people paid attention to the action. Therefore, you can analyze the transitions to the site. On the day of the action, 1893 people went to the site. In total, a week after the event 2500 people came (a link to the action is stored in the "past promotions" and in the mailing letters). The distribution looks like a peak with a peak on the day of the promotion on the Groupon's main page. By the way, only transitions would cost 16,000 rubles with context.
On the day of the promotion, 218 new user registrations were received. Approximately half of the users registered, used the test free note without buying anything on the stock. These registrations can be considered “free”, but in case of context they would cost about 6,000 rubles.
Talk about ext. it’s too early to sell: most coupons who have purchased have not yet used all the notes in the packages. Nevertheless, it is already visible that many users are in no hurry to use the purchased coupons: after 3 weeks only 60% of those who bought their coupons activated their coupons. Most likely, the rest have not reached their hands, and in the future the number will increase.
In addition to everything described, I received feedback. In response to comments on the action, the Groupon support service contacted me and asked questions. From these questions, it turned out to extract a lot of useful and well understand how potential customers perceive the product.
In addition to clients, the action attracted teachers: I received a resume from 4 specialists who wanted to start cooperation.
So, at the moment the results of the action for me were:
Using the context, I would pay about 150,000 rubles for a similar number of users who started to write notes. In a campaign with a groupon, I made an offer below cost and the actual amount of costs will depend on how many users use their note packs in full. At the same time, the costs will definitely not exceed 90,000 rubles, and this is already quite beneficial to the context.
It is also worth noting that I received the results of the campaign very quickly (in 1 day) and “forward”, and I will pay for them later.
As the manager later informed me, the financial effect of the action was not very interesting for Groupon and further cooperation in the same format in the near future will be impossible.
For my part, I’ll say that everyone draws his own conclusions, but I was completely satisfied with the results: the promotion was cheaper than with the help of contextual advertising, and a tangible impetus for the development of a very young project was quickly generated. Now I am inclined to believe that collective shopping services, despite their disgraced reputation, can be quite useful for young projects, especially when you need to set a good start without high costs.
And a few words about LangNote. The project is developing further, now I know that users want to choose in which language to receive comments on notes, and also be able to respond to teachers' comments. There is great interest in new languages, of which in the near future we will add German, Spanish and native Russian.
I will be glad to answer questions and hear new suggestions. Write to ask@langnote.net and go to LangNote.net
A month ago, I decided to hold an action with a collective purchase service in order to accelerate the promotion of Langnote. After a little analysis, the choice fell on the Groupon, and the action took place on September 16. Already, the results show that such services can be used to significantly accelerate the business at the startup stage. This will be discussed in the article below.
Why did you need a promotion
Since the launch of the LangNote service , the main promotion tool has been contextual advertising, which, with a budget of 2000 rubles a week, resulted in an average of 300 clicks to the site, about 30 registrations and two users who started writing notes.
At the first stage of LangNote's work , the main questions for me were: a) the availability of value in a fairly new product for the audience and b) how to manage limited IT resources (choose the right steps for development). To answer these critical questions, writing users were needed in large numbers, and as quickly as possible. The speed of 2 users per week of 1000 rubles for each, of course, was unsatisfactory: I did not want to wait several months.
As services like Groupon claim, they can quickly bring in new customers. Instead, you are required to make a discount of at least 50% of the price of services. I figured out the conditions and decided to hold the action.
The essence of the action
The structure of the action was suggested by the groupon manager. The options offered were:
- 75% discount (250 instead of 690 rubles) for the smallest set of 10 notes.
- 80% discount (300 instead of 1190 rubles) for an average set of 20 notes
- a discount of up to 85% (350 rubles instead of 1,690 rubles) for a large package of 30 notes, which lasts, on average, for three to four months.
Groupon takes 50% of the collected funds for its services. With this in mind, in all the proposed options, I received less than the cost, i.e. went to minus. The biggest minus came out in the case of a maximum package of 30 notes - about -700 rubles. It was also taken into account that not all purchasers use note packages completely, and real losses will decrease.
You can see how the action looked here . On the day of sales, it hung almost in last place among the new shares of the day. The action was national - that is, in all cities where Grupon is present.
results
In the presentation, Groupon promises the following benefits:
- new customers
- word of mouth (friends of new customers)
- advertising for a multi-million audience (e-mail newsletter)
- additional sales
Let's go in order:
1) new customers
The action hung on the site one day (Friday). By the end of the day, 132 coupons were sold (under the terms of the offer, one coupon in one hand). Most bought expensive packages of 30 notes.
The total revenue amounted to 32,300 rubles, half of which, with 100% activation of coupons, the groupon will transfer to me.
The system allows you to see details about the buyers:
Gender distribution of buyers:
From which cities buyers:
2) word of mouth
It is too early to draw conclusions: most of those who have just started using the service, and if the radio works, it will be a little later. Nevertheless, you can look at the "likes" on Facebook and VKontakte. On the day of the promotion, LangNote earned about 10 likes there and there. A trifle, but nice!
3) advertising for a multi-million audience
It is impossible to find out how many people paid attention to the action. Therefore, you can analyze the transitions to the site. On the day of the action, 1893 people went to the site. In total, a week after the event 2500 people came (a link to the action is stored in the "past promotions" and in the mailing letters). The distribution looks like a peak with a peak on the day of the promotion on the Groupon's main page. By the way, only transitions would cost 16,000 rubles with context.
On the day of the promotion, 218 new user registrations were received. Approximately half of the users registered, used the test free note without buying anything on the stock. These registrations can be considered “free”, but in case of context they would cost about 6,000 rubles.
4) additional sales
Talk about ext. it’s too early to sell: most coupons who have purchased have not yet used all the notes in the packages. Nevertheless, it is already visible that many users are in no hurry to use the purchased coupons: after 3 weeks only 60% of those who bought their coupons activated their coupons. Most likely, the rest have not reached their hands, and in the future the number will increase.
Additional value - comments on groupon website and resumes of applicants
In addition to everything described, I received feedback. In response to comments on the action, the Groupon support service contacted me and asked questions. From these questions, it turned out to extract a lot of useful and well understand how potential customers perceive the product.
In addition to clients, the action attracted teachers: I received a resume from 4 specialists who wanted to start cooperation.
Dry residue
So, at the moment the results of the action for me were:
- 2500 new visitors to the site
- 218 new user registrations in one day
- already about 150 people have already started writing notes
- 4 resumes of teachers
- a large number of reviews and suggestions
Using the context, I would pay about 150,000 rubles for a similar number of users who started to write notes. In a campaign with a groupon, I made an offer below cost and the actual amount of costs will depend on how many users use their note packs in full. At the same time, the costs will definitely not exceed 90,000 rubles, and this is already quite beneficial to the context.
It is also worth noting that I received the results of the campaign very quickly (in 1 day) and “forward”, and I will pay for them later.
Epilogue
As the manager later informed me, the financial effect of the action was not very interesting for Groupon and further cooperation in the same format in the near future will be impossible.
For my part, I’ll say that everyone draws his own conclusions, but I was completely satisfied with the results: the promotion was cheaper than with the help of contextual advertising, and a tangible impetus for the development of a very young project was quickly generated. Now I am inclined to believe that collective shopping services, despite their disgraced reputation, can be quite useful for young projects, especially when you need to set a good start without high costs.
And a few words about LangNote. The project is developing further, now I know that users want to choose in which language to receive comments on notes, and also be able to respond to teachers' comments. There is great interest in new languages, of which in the near future we will add German, Spanish and native Russian.
I will be glad to answer questions and hear new suggestions. Write to ask@langnote.net and go to LangNote.net