When you want to hide from Google

Really interesting article over at econsultancy about the retraining of online consumers to use means other than search to find deals.

In these recessionary times, now more than ever people love a bargain. I’ve lost count of the homes and offices I’ve gone into in the last year who’s bathrooms are stocked with those telltale brands that are only found in the low price foreign chain supermarkets. We’re all well past the no thought of price consumerism (are we?) of the early naughties and now the middle classes are just as comfortable in Lidl as those making do on benefits.

But discounting is a no go back cycle. If you’re offering stock at slashed prices with minimum profit margin you don’t want your cash rich clientele to know.  Loose out on the disposable income they would otherwise quite happily have spent. – not such a great positioning strategy.

So online coupon and crowd sourcing sites need to stay off the general search radar in order to win those heavily discounted deals from brands.  Hiding product pricing from Google as part of their business model means that they have to find other ways to get the attention and the conversions from deal savvy audience.

Enter email – how many times has it been written off only to rise again as a champion. Women are subscribing to email to find deals. Brand loyalty/reward meets targeted low wastage marketing. But don’t stop at email, think Facebook, Twitter and even geo location couponing.

It’s all to play for and how refreshing to look at business models where search visibility isn’t a major part of their tactical marketing!