Constant Contact is pushing into the daily deal space, with its own variation of this now ubiquitous model. The company has launched SaveLocal, a tool that Constant Contact touts as giving merchants control to run deals that make sense financially.
Good Terms for Merchants
"The current options demand that the merchant relinquish total control of the deal," said Dave Gilbertson, vice president and general manager of Constant Contact’s newly created SaveLocal business unit.
"They require steep revenue sharing and attract deal seekers rather than new, long-term customers."
Under SaveLocal, the merchant can control the discount amount, the terms of the deal, timing, and how many coupons to sell. Deals can be created and published in minutes. The pricing model requires merchants to pay just $1, $2 or $3 per coupon purchased. As part of its move into the deals space, Constant Contact acquired MobManager, a Chicago-based daily deal manager.
Merging Channels
Constant Contact’s move into the daily deal space was almost inevitable, given the way digital marketing channels of all types continue to merge. Email and social media integration is almost old school by this point. Now integration is happening in many different directions, from social media to email marketing (instead of vice versa) as can be seen by LinkedIn's acquisition of Rapportive, to email marketing to mobile, as can be seen by VerticalResponse's new iOS mobile application for its Roost by VerticalResponse social media marketing platform. Indeed, according to a report released in February 2012 by Nielsen and NM Incite, social networking applications accounted for 5.5% of time spent on mobile phones in October 2011, ahead of time spent on other phone functions such as email and instant messaging (5.3%) and dialer (5.4%).
Related Digital Ad Integration Too
Email marketers have also been incorporating other related online ad disciplines into their offerings such as display advertising in the case of LiveIntent and loyalty—via Constant Contact's acquisition of CardStar.
