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January 25, 2012

Google's Daily Deal Service Adds Five New Cities

By Michelle Amodio, TMCnet Contributor

The daily deal market is a hot one when it comes to getting attention and marketing. It seems there’s a new daily deal service for just about everything, from concert tickets, limited time offers, luxury items, and things people actually need. Not every area has access to these deals, but Google’s (News - Alert) service, Google Offers just added five more cities to its daily deal list.



Starting today, residents in Charlotte, Kansas City, Milwaukee, San Antonio and Tampa can take advantage of daily deal offers in their area.

“2011 was quite a year for Google Offers. In only six months (since we first launched in Portland) we introduced amazing deals from beloved local business in 33 cities in the U.S., launched national deals and released our first mobile app,” writes the Google Commerce blog.

Local businesses are taking advantage of the business revenue and marketing that comes with daily deal advertising.

“It’s something we’ve done to reward our customers more than anything else,” said Gary Berbiglia with Arthur Bryant’s, reports the local Fox4. “We don’t do a lot of this type of thing and we thought it was great to get involved with Google and their launch.”

After just three hours, there were already 140 deals purchased for Arthur Bryants.

Daily deal marketing is a new way for small, local places of business to garner interest and awareness, although it’s not always a way to boost revenue.

“Our life changed after Groupon — we would do it again,” said Michele Casadei Massari, 35, an owner of two Piccolo Cafes in Manhattan. According to the New York Times, Groupon sells its online coupons for half their food value and then Groupon takes an additional 50 percent of the discount sales. On March 1,2011, in a timed deal, Piccolo Cafe sold 1,142 coupons for $14 worth of food in 24 hours.

“You don’t make money on the deal,” Massari acknowledged, “but in the end we are even.”

Small businesses targeting local markets don’t always embrace e-commerce or social media, but the instant access to a well-targeted local market is a great benefit of daily deal sites.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration, click here.

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Michelle Amodio is a TMCnet contributor. She has helped promote companies and groups in all industries, from technology to banking to professional roller derby. She holds a bachelor's degree in Writing from Endicott College and currently works in marketing, journalism, and public relations as a freelancer.

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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