

Gamification on steroids - robbymgood
http://gamersrant.com/?p=682

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gbsi
This is brilliant. People playing games for rewards they can redeem (duh).
More in-depth. People making an actual effort for their reward, and having fun
doing it. The effort made (playing the game) is something I feel strongly
about, especially as companies freely customize the deal offered. This amongst
others means that the company is able to track what people are prepared to do
for what. I know this is sweetened by the fact that they're playing games, and
different games have different effort levels. I feel this will be much more
effective than low-ball dealsites like groupon. I have my feelings regarding
groupon, which almost anonymizes the actual vendor, leaving them feeling raped
by the scavanger-like clientele, only looking for the cheapest possible, I am
talking from personal experience having launched a few campaigns.

As the the businesses in article state;

"We prefer Dobango over other sites like Groupon, LivingSocial, because
Dobango has helped bring in higher quality customers that are more likely to
come back rather than clients looking for one time low-ball deals, who are not
likely to become repeat customers."

This is where the money's at.

User adoption is incredibly important. However, having a community with a
large userbase, you have a responsability to keep them happy. To do so, having
an inventory/product/service to offer your users is what will keep them coming
back, ergo, keeping your suppliers happy is equally important.

Groupon is great, but me in my expertise as a marketing manager/consultant,
the cost of marketing was far too great, and the clientele produced wouldn´t
really come back again to our hotel. I'm sure groupon works for businesses
that can support that high level of discount, such as established franchises
and larger corporations, but our hotel, with 15 in staff and 30 rooms, could
never run more than one promotion every quarter. It creates a scavangerlike
mentality, which is great for groupon but useless for the businesses. Its
appealing to the most basic of their animal instincts cheap=awesome. It´s a
cheap form of marketing that I highly dissapprove of. I could make a lot more
money just telling every single client I've worked with to slash prices and
simply undercut the competition, but this is no way of driving innovation
forward. You want to create more business, innovate and sell at higher price.
Perpetually pricing yourself lower than your competition will eventually leave
you like one of the now many defunct, outdated and out-right shitty hotels
populating the Cancun beaches. (I'm a hotel marketing consultant in Mexico and
the Riviera Maya).

And now i'm done unleashing my frustration over shortsighted marketers.

