Recent Techcrunch post “Why Online2Offline is a Trillion Dollar Opportunity” essentially tries to differentiate the admittedly exploding market for online coupons into some kind of brand new market segment that’s fundamentally different from the online directories - not. The whole goal of the online directories is to drive consumers from an online experience to offline purchase. And they do so in myriad ways of which coupons are only a fraction and part of an overall mix. Different segments require different marketing incentives - not a lot of coupons for Doctors. Directories offer full-service online programs for the entire market but they’re all about getting people from their computer to their phone and finally to the front door (whether the local florist or their own door for the plumber). The reason we see the success of all these sites is two-fold. First, it’s because there are still clear opportunities for “horizontals” - sites that focus on one thing in the consumer behavior mix ala Yelp for reviews, Open Table for reservations - because it is a challenge to do all things well for all segments. And, two, technology is catching up to facilitate more complex behaviors online. Just providing a “payment method” doesn’t magically define some new market segment. As a side note, I don’t think there are many of us in the directory space that consider Yelp a directory but, hey, like Greg says, we’ve only been saying this for a decade so who am I to pontificate. I just don’t get to say it (or is it pay for it) on Techcrunch.
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