Visa and Gap launch new service

According to foreign media reports, Visa is using its global network to push coupons to consumers in real time (if consumers choose to use this service). The company has worked with Gap, a leading retailer, to provide information and coupons on promotional activities to users after they have completed certain transactions with Visa cards.

The news is that visa is moving into the increasingly congested mobile-offer market, with many companies (from Groupon, Foursquare to ebay and Yelp) posting local offers via mobile phones. But the news highlights the direction of competition in the field.

Just location based discounts are not enough

Some services are already offering discounts to customers who sign up for certain places, but the direction is now to offer more directional benefits that take into account more information than just location. For consumers, this will be the key to local preferential activities. It is not enough to provide a generic discount based on location. Promotional activities must be tailored to the tastes and interests of the user, considering what time of day it is, and sometimes even the weather and other data. This approach will make mobile offers better results.

This is the interesting thing about the visa project. Gap shoppers who sign up for the project can get coupons to push to their phones after shopping through visa cards. Gap or other businesses participating in the project (the project is soon launched in the United States), not only can provide customers with the preferential activities based on postal code, but also through other factors to pick out coupons recipients, such as at the time of the day, the customer's consumption habits, the type of business they have just visited, And any other thing that visa can provide to partners, based on the consumer habits of their customers.

This may open the door for businesses involved in the project to offer more targeted real-time discounts to customers. For example, someone has just bought petrol in the morning, there is no need to provide a petrol coupon. But sending a coffee or breakfast coupon is good. This is what Visa offers: the history of customer shopping and the ability to let businesses take advantage of these histories in real time.

More Intelligent Promotions

This is partly thanks to the growing ability to process large amounts of data in real time, and to increased consumer willingness to share more information. When local businesses move up and down, they offer "more reasonable, smarter" discounts to customers who are more likely to notice and use them.

The preferential activities offered by start-up Thinknear are an example of "smarter". The company is developing a system that allows businesses to push their discounts based on a number of factors (not just the location), such as which time of day, what the weather is, and even what activities are held locally. While the system is more focused on helping businesses attract customers during their leisure hours, it reflects how smart and data can help improve preferential activities and make them more effective.

Groupon's takeover WHRRL shows it is working in this direction, trying to make local offers "smarter". Groupon has launched a mobile offers app, called Groupon Now, which offers users a time based discount. WHRRL's technology will help match the user's tastes and discounts.

Increase the relevance of preferential activities

Dennis Krauli, Foursquare's founder, Dennis Crowley, said at the where 2.0 meeting that Foursquare wanted to provide such services in the future: based on when and where a person had been, to determine whether the person had had lunch, Should send him a lunch coupon.

This may sound intrusive, but people are getting used to sharing their place, especially when it means getting some good returns. Retailers, lbs services and offer providers need to be cautious, but the more relevant they are, the more meaningful they are to users, and the more likely they are to succeed.