Mobilize.Me Offers Businesses More Control in Daily Deals Service
Mobilize.Me, a platform that combines deals, loyalty incentives, and customer feedback in one place, is among the latest sites to take a stab at daily deal services as a marketing tool—but with a twist.
The Portland, Ore.–based Mobilize.Me lets registered businesses create incentive-based promotional campaigns and specify when promotions can and can't run, as well as dictate how much total promotional activity is allowed.
Promotions sent via Mobilize.Me are private and only sent to a handful of customers at a time. For example, a discount promotion for a restaurant may read, "Get $10 off when you spend $30 or more! This offer will be sent to a maximum of eight people, the first two to Reply YES get it! Good through Wednesday, 12/14." After a customer responds to activate a deal, Mobilize.Me generates a unique reward code that customers present to the business to redeem the offer.
"We think the future of 'deals' will be all about applying different forms of incentives continuously and automatically across the entire customer relationship cycle, from initial interest through advocacy," said Byron Binkley, Mobilize.Me's founder and CEO in a statement. "Daily deals are on a collision course with loyalty programs and socially aware customer relationship platforms like Yelp, and the outcome is going to be incentive programs that build long-term, lasting customer relationships—automatically."
Registered consumers specify when and how often they want to receive offers from individual businesses and all businesses combined. Additionally, consumers can nominate businesses they would like to see using Mobilize.Me by adding "Wishlists" on the Web site.
Mobilize.Me charges a $49 setup fee, and the site is free for up to 50 subscribers, after which businesses are charged based on the number of subscribers they have at the beginning of the month. For 51 to 100 customers, the fee is $24 a month, and goes up to $99 for more than 200 subscribers.
The company launched its pilot program two years ago with more than 50 clients and 15,000 mobile promotions from local businesses, which were primarily bars and restaurants. The platform is now open to all businesses, and the company's next step is to launch a national campaign in 25 United States cities in 2012, starting with Portland.