10 Top Tips For Running a National Groupon Promotion with Magento.

We recently ran a number of Groupon national daily deal promotions for the Discount Emporium on their Magento e-commerce platform.

We thought we'd share some key learning so that anyone thinking about running one of these for themselves or a client can at the very least follow a checklist of need to knows to avoid the problems that we faced. This is aimed at companies looking to use their e-commerce site to redeem the Groupon codes on their site.

So what are the top tips that we could give to help anyone else entering into the strange world that is Groupon National Deals?

1. Check the payment gateways that you have enabled. As in most cases the user will discount the full amount of the item at checkout, they will only be asked to pay for postage/shipping. Payment gateways such as PayPal don't like this, so you may need to disable this as a payment option or do as we did and write a workaround through to PayPal that accounts for the product price, discount and shipping. This was a big headache when using the standard PayPal plugins for Magento.

2. The product listing. If there are any variables to a product, or any questions that a user may have then you need to make it clear on the product. For Magento we recommend you add some attributes to define that it is a Groupon deal and then style those out so that its easy for non-technical users to add a visual cue. See below.

Fig 1 - Additional attributes within the admin section of Magento differentiate Groupon deal products

Fig 2 - The green box with the Groupon logo is automatically added, providing users with a visual cue

3. The discount code in the basket. Make sure it is extremely obvious to users where they need to add their code. If you don't they won't and the phones will go off the hook as people pay full price. We ran the highest grossing Groupon deal in the UK in January 2012 and it generated over 2,000 calls in one day because of this issue. We've been through the pain so you don't have to!

Fig 3 - Making the Groupon code area very obvious will save a lot of trouble during a deal.

4. Make sure that codes can't break. This was the point of most failure when we ran the initial promotions for our clients. In its default state, and I think its the same for most systems, Magento considers a code 'used' once you progress to the payment gateway. It doesn't have the logic to understand that if there is a problem with the payment, or if the user hits the back button to check something that the code is not actually used.

So you need to create a workaround for this, and we found that the best method was to keep a code live until the payment authorisation code was passed back into Magento. This worked well for inline payment systems such as SagePay and also off site gateways such as As Barclays ePDQ, RBS WorldPay and PayPal. We developed this solution within the Magento framework and it has worked very well.

In a nutshell the Groupon redemption code is preserved until the user has successfully processed a payment.

5. Uploading the Groupon coupon codes. If you do a daily deal, then every morning you get a file with all of the codes for the previous day, as well as all of the refunded codes that need to be 'killed'. This one was interesting.

The first part of the puzzle was sorted with a nice plugin for Magento from the guys at Amasty called Wild Card and URL Coupons, was only £65 and saved a load of time. You can get it here, http://amasty.com/wildcard-and-url-coupons.html.

We then developed a coupon code checker and 'killer' to check codes that people said weren't working and to disable codes that Groupon had refunded against. If you've got thousands of these critters you need a fast way to do it!

Fig 4 - The little Groupon code checker and killer we developed to make code usage checking and deletion easy

6. Be ready for the onslaught! Invest in an online ticketing system. We used Zendesk but I'm sure there are others that can be used. The thing is, when you run a daily deal you will find that during the redemption phase your phone lines will get hammered. It is imperative that you make sure the phone number shown on any of your online assets such as the web site, transactional emails etc, goes to a recorded message telling customers to go to the contact us page on your web site if they are having problems. Then you integrate the contact us form directly into your help desk system so everything is tracked and monitored. In most cases you just reply with a pre-set macro as users often have the same problem. The fact that they get a notification with a reference number calms most of them down, and gives you time to respond properly.

Fig 5 - Groupon tickets reported in Zen Desk. See how quickly it escalates post deal. You don't want the phone ringing!

7. Remember to cross sell products! One of the things we discovered for our clients was that you only sell the Groupon product. Customers don't necessarily come back and nor do they order extra products. Our key learning in this area was to try and choose products that you can cross sell extras for. In the case of the Vax promotions this was very successful.

8. Modify your home page with a highlighted Groupon redemption page that makes it easy for your customers to get to the deal product fast. Otherwise you're going to get hammered on the phone and email

9. Promote your own secret sales. You will capture a lot of e-mail data as part of the order redemption process, and you will get an opportunity to e-mail customers once. But don't be shy, ask them to sign up for your own 'secret sales'. A lot of them will, and you can then run your own promotions with the redemption amounts coming directly to you, no affiliate fees - whoopee!

We wrote a direct integration module for the Discount Emporium that links into Silverpop and stores the customer information, product bought etc, so when they have amassed enough data they can run their own targeted secret sales.

10. Encourage people to follow you and sign up for your emails on your order confirmation e-mails. Then after campaigns have finished spend some time on your web analytics to see what else people looked at on your site, and use the intelligence to target the users by email, Facebook and Twitter to try and generate further sales.

A Guide to Using QR Codes for Marketers.

How to generate and use QR codes in your marketing.

There has been a lot of noise surrounding QR codes in the media recently, and switched on marketers are starting to use them in print, online and on outdoor campaigns.

We've been working with QR codes in the lab for quite some time, integrating offline packaging solutions to rich media to aid with point of sale promotion in-store and post sale instruction guides.

Firstly, what is A QR code? You're bound to be asked by someone...

Well its generally accepted that QR codes (which is an abbreviation for Quick Response Code), is a 2 dimensional barcode that can be read by QR barcode readers and camera phones. They were developed by Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave as far back as 1994 to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed, typically used in parts location for vehicle manufacturers and very common in South East Asia. QR codes are now becoming common in developed markets such as the US and Europe with the adoption of smartphones that can read them via their built-in cameras. For a full history of QR codes check out the wiki link here.

The graphic above (courtesy of Wikipedia) explains how the code is constructed, and this is a very important point in understanding how to build your codes.

We've been tasked to produce thousands of codes to date and our key learning has shown that simple is best.

OK, So How Do I Generate a QR Code?

There are lots of tools out there, but we prefer the one at Kaywa, because it works... http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ Try it by cutting a web URL into it and generating your own code.

However, you need to be aware of something when generating your codes. That is the size of your URL. The more information you have in the URL the more complex the resultant code will be and therefore the larger it will need to displayed at for readers to engage with it.

See the examples below. The first one shows a standard web link optimised for output as a large QR code, and the one beneath it is a long URL. The difference in size is apparent, and will be problematic for marketers wanting to use codes on print or screen.

Now for QR readers, if you run an Android device such as an HTC you should have one built in, for Apple you can use one of the free QR Reader apps such as the imaginatively named 'QR Reader'. It does what it says on the tin, get it here. (if you are on iPhone or iPad2 this link takes you right to the app store)

Simple URL QR Code - try it on your mobile device.

Deep link URL QR Code, see how much more information is contained in the code, and the difference in size?

So how can we get around the issue of deep linking URLS and the complexity of the resultant code. After all we want to be able to use them at a smaller size when integrating with business cards, point of sale, on printed instruction booklets, packaging, and screens.

Well there is a way, using tools such as Tiny URL will format the code in a cleaner way, and the URL redirect renders the correct deep linked page, see below;

Using the URL shortener gives a simpler QR code that still deep links. Much better solution!

This Code takes you to the same destination as the more complex one above it. Try it on your mobile device.

OK, so we've covered the how to create a code effectively from a URL. Now lets look at the other options available to us.In the codes shown below you'll see a text message QR code to the left and a simple phone number QR code to the right.

Smartphone and tablet devices utilising a reader know how to interpret these codes from within the device, opening a text message, or a phone book entry respectively.

The code to the left opens a text message on your device, and the one to the right renders a phone number.

Try them on your mobile devices.

How to Market Using QR Codes

So the next part is about knowing how to actually use your QR codes in real life marketing projects. We'll give you a few examples of how we've implemented campaigns for some of our clients.

1. Packaging QR Codes to help with installation post sale.

Honeywell had seen the work we were doing for some other clients on rich media overlays for e-commerce and asked whether we could develop something that could be placed on packaging and instruction leaflets to drive purchasers through to installation and troubleshooting videos.

What we like about the idea was that it wasn't just QR for the sake of QR. It had a purpose. We quickly set about customising our rich media platform to cater for multiple videos that would render properly on mobile devices.

Honeywell were supplied with the final URL's for each product ahead of time so that the packaging artwork could commence, you know how long offline takes!

In the meantime we set about generating the assets mindful that when accessed via a QR reader on say an iPhone that you can't rotate. Big pain, which I'm sure will be overcome soon. Therefore we had to make sure the video assets were in effect square. To view the final result try the QR code below, if you don't have a mobile device you can click on it too.

The Honeywell Rich Media Overlay Project.

2. Uing QR codes to elicit sign up to a programme or promotion

The Discount Emporium runs on a very simple model, they sell electrical appliances direct to the public at big discounts. The majority of their stock is bulk buys from manufacturers and near end of line products. once they've gone they've gone, and Discount Emporium needed to get as many consumers signed up to their regular voucher e-mailings giving consumers even more discount than normal.

They started to use the QR code on all of their offline collateral and on all delivery notes that went out with each order. The QR code directed people to the two line sign up form on the web site that they might have missed otherwise.

The campaign drives much better sign up to the e-mail lists, and when these are used in conjunction with ordering history and user propensity via the STAR Digital Sure Agency partnership with Silverpop the results are impressive.

Simple and effective QR code to drive sign-up to a consumer e-mail list. Try it on your device.

QR Codes in the STAR Digital Lab

We've been experimenting with QR codes in the lab, and we've created customised designs using graphics within the code themselves. We've added them to our business cards, and we are working on pilot schemes with a number of clients for intelligent point of sale and post sale campaigns to increase user engagement with their brands.

We believe that the QR code is here to stay, and brands will start to use them in POS applications to incentivise a purchase by using driving consumers to simple web pages where they do a two filed registration and get emailed a discount or up-sell voucher valid for one hour that can be redeemed in store.

For post sale we can see brands using them in a similar way to register a product allowing them to know when the user purchased and then e-mail them to sell extended guarantees or consumables.

As we do more in the lab we'll update this page to keep you informed. In the meantime if you want to know more, give us a shout.

QR Code Update

Seeing some brands doing cooler QR codes integrated into design, recent notable examples include the Figaro and IDM QR Codes shown below!

The Figaro QR Code is photographic, but actually works!

The IDM used colour to convey a QR code as a piece of design

With the advent of reliable broadband connections across the UK, we are seeing e-commerce sites starting to use what's know as rich media to make the online consumer product experience more engaging. Brands such as Argos have in the past 12 months issued rich media guidelines to suppliers informing them of how to supply not just product photos with their product listings but also 360 degree animations and even CGI fly through illustrations and movies with voice-overs to increase the effectiveness of their listings on the sites pages.

In the case of Argos, we met with the man tasked with overseeing this project and he admitted it was a huge job. So much so that they had engaged with a number of partners to offer their suppliers a choice of vendors to deliver solutions. In the background they also signed up with Adobe Scene 7, a rich media solution for enterprise e-commerce. So they had a strategy, or did they?

Well it was an emergent strategy of sorts, the onus was on the suppliers, but we spoke to a few of them who were at the lower end of the spectrum, and they were confused by the requirements documents, and gasped at the prices they were being quoted.

I spoke with Rob Pearson, MD at CIC, and a veteran of product photography and packaging for all kinds of brands, and he said we should develop a solution that would be fast, turnkey, automated and cost effective for his customers to leverage the opportunity that rich media presented. He spoke with his clients and they felt that the rich media solutions needed to be simple, fast and cost effective. We settled on two types of rich media overlay for e-commerce that could be provided out of the box.

The first one is called a simple overlay, and consists of a photo gallery with zoom, and two extra tabs for documents such as instructions or guarantees. You can view an example of our simple rich media overlay by clicking on the image below left.

The second one is known as a complex rich media overlay, and these can include a number of customised tabs that contain elements such as video, 360 degree images, a photo gallery and multiple documents. You can view a complex rich media overlay by clicking on the image below right

But we didn't stop there, the next thing we found was that we could employ rich media to solve some usability problems within e-commerce by taking complex product offerings such as complete bathrooms or kitchens and applying the rich media treatment to help users add multiple items to their basket quickly and easily.

This for us was a breakthrough moment, the treatment couldn't be as turnkey as the creative was important and needed to work for the range in question. Quite simply we found a way to make the selection of a suite of products visually and add them to an e-commerce basket as one.

The reason I've added this article to the lab is because that's where we are with the project. Partnering with CIC we've done some spec work for brands such as Sainsbury's and the Co-Op and we think that its just a little ahead of its time. We're using Jquery and CSS 3.0 to make it really slick, so if you fancy one for your web site give us a shout we'd be pleased to engage and show you where we are with it.

Everyone in the UK wanted to know what the 'austerity' budget would bring, and our client TaxTV needed a robust solution to broadcast their 'budget special' internet video channel as a freebie to every Accountancy practice in the UK interested in the tax implications of the budget.

Concurrent connections were in the region of 200 at a time to view the 60 minute broadcast over a period of about 4 days. Dedicated server solutions would be prohibitive vs return on investment, as demand peaks and troughs. Enter the cloud. Using Rackspace Cloud files hooked up to a bespoke Joomla component we created a hybrid solution that links Joomla to the cloud files to ensure that the client only pays for what is used.

This meant we could spec a base level hosting solution for the Joomla install backed up by the enterprise level cloud solution that scales on demand and uses the Akaemi CDN to deploy files to local points of presence, thereby speeding up the viewing experience.

Combine that with Google Analytics Event Tracking and we could feedback to the client the number of plays, pauses and stops on each of the video reels. This learning showed us that we needed to use a You Tube channel effect to break the main video up into 'bite-size' chunks. This increased interaction with the overall video and made the channel a lot 'sticker' than it had been before.

To find out more about using cloud files with your rich media solutions get in touch with STAR Digital's digital publishing team.