Groupon and SCORE Unite to Help Small Businesses

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 2012-- Today Groupon GRPN (http://www.groupon.com) (NASDAQ: GRPN) announced a partnership with SCORE (http://www.score.org), a nonprofit association dedicated to encouraging the formation, growth and success of small businesses. As part of the new alliance, Grouponand SCORE have developed a series of online educational resources about customer acquisition, retention and marketing for small businesses.

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Valpak Annual Consumer Savings Report Uncovers Consumer Savings Snafus, Frugal Plans for Summer Entertaining

As consumers get ready to kick off summer this Memorial Day, the Valpak annual Consumer Savings Report reveals it’s going to be a scaled-back summer for many of them. The third annual summer report* indicates a steady decline in consumers’ purchase intentions over the past two years, from 70 percent in 2010 planning to spend the same or more to just 50 percent in 2012. Only 23 percent of consumers plan to spend more this summer over last, down five percent from last year, on purchases ranging from vacations to home improvement to electronics.

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Google Offers Featuring Deals From Other Local and Niche Deal Sites

Crowd Savings, KGB Deals and AP Daily Deals are just a few examples of daily deal sites that are now having some of their deals featured on Google Offers.  If you're a daily deal publisher interested in featuring your deals on Google Offers, here's the application form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dGd2amFNM3VtLUxxNDlWTUxsQjdVQmc6MQ&ndplr=1#gid=0

Powered by Tippr : Four More Tips for Increasing Your Subscriber Base

We constantly preach that bigger isn’t better when it comes to your daily deal email lists but the truth is everyone is still looking for respectable ways to grow their email lists.  Here are a few quick tips for increasing your subscriber base:

1. Run contest but keep it simple.  Then make sure to announce who won via email, it gives you credibility to follow through and recognize the winner.

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Business Model Institute : Groupon Business Model vs. Val-Pak

For some, coupons are dead and are a relic of the older days. I’m a heavily Internet-connected late 30s tech-aware consumer and yet I still open my envelope of Val-Pak coupons. I look at each and every coupon and from time-to-time I keep a coupon or two.

This has me wonder if the Val-Pak business model can still survive in the age of Groupon? Are the business models of these seemingly different businesses really that different? Both companies want you to take them up on their offer and seek out the businesses they are effectively advertising and promoting.

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Daily Deal Media : SaveMore.com Costs Merchant Thousands, Accused of Running Scam Website

SaveMore.com may make it difficult for angry customers to reach; however news of the company’s questionable practices has been increasingly easy to find. According to unconfirmed online sources, SaveMore is at the end of a long chain of companies, all with debatable ties.

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Daily Deal Media : Constant Contact Acquires MobManager as Possible Element in Daily Deals Venture

According to Boston news site, BostInno, email marketing company, Constant Contact,  has acquired MobManager. The startup which was founded in 2010 is a daily deal management platform that makes it possible for small businesses to have better control over their daily deals.

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Bloomberg : LivingSocial Is Said to Get Funding Valuing It at $6 Billion

LivingSocial.com, the online-coupon provider that competes with Groupon Inc., lined up $400 million in funding that gives it a valuation of about $6 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The company has already sold $176 million of the total, Washington-based LivingSocial said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

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Bloomberg : Groupon Accused in Lawsuit of Altering Merchant Contracts in Sent E-Mails

Groupon corresponds with its merchant-clients by e-mail and transmits its merchant agreements in the body of e-mailed messages, according to the complaint by BidMyCrib, a website that allows contractors to bid on residential construction projects. The company later goes into those e-mails and alters the content, according to the complaint.

Groupon changed at least one section of the merchant agreement with BidMyCrib by adding a new sentence regarding voucher expiration dates to the previously agreed-upon language, according to the complaint.

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Tippr Adds Google Offers to Growing List of Affiliate Partners for White-Label Daily Deal Platform

TIPPR™, the premier provider of group buying solutions, today announced a partnership with Google Offers that will leverage Google’s trusted brand and extensive reach to expand the distribution of TIPPR deals to new cities, beginning in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Google Offers service, which sends local, personalized deals of the day to subscribers email inboxes, launched in June and has quickly expanded to additional cities nationwide. With this partnership, Google Offers subscribers gain access to deals provided by TIPPR.com.

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