Call out the 1M new reviews in the shortest time frame ever.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on deals. The space is crowded. It feels like everyone has gotten in on the game. But when you pull back and take look around to see how many sites are offering deals in multiple markets that number shrinks rapidly to a small handful. Here at Yelp we started to notice some interesting things happening when we kicked off our Deals product over the Summer.
Let’s take a look at a business owner dash board. This is a free reporting tools that business owners have access to when they claim their page. Any guesses as to what happened in August? (pause for responses) They ran a Groupon. And when they ran their deal – guess what happened to their pageviews on Yelp? Consumers flocked to the site to read what other consumers had to say about the business before
Solves the ‘last mile’ problem for Yelp. Brings the transaction offline to online. Enables Yelp and Business Owners to easily measure value
Here is an example of a deal we ran on March 2. It’s a good example of what happens when we present a solid deal from a business that’s doing some remarkable things. 1730 purchased!
So we know, that our users want great deals from businesses that are delivering a great product or service, but now consider the after effects . Yelp empowers consumers to share their experiences if they wish. And guess what for those who are so inclined, we have seen this happen time and again. The reviews come in, and by layering on other bits of information they’ve shared with us (did they buy a deal? Have they checked in?) We are able to reinforce the entire experience for the business owner (with concrete quantitative information) and consumers (by increasing the trustworthiness of a review). But exercise caution here: Don’t just do a deal for the sake of doing a deal. Be it on Yelp, Groupon or Living Social, be sure to ask yourself the following. Do we have enough inventory, staff, resources to adequately manage a large volume of deals? Because no matter what site you use to offer a deal you want to provide a great experience. Customer acquisition is one thing, but establishing relationships with repeat customers is another… (click to next slide)
Here is a screenshot we took last week, of a business that ran a Yelp deal. The blue bars are the pageviews before they became an advertiser. The yellow bars are their pageviews after they became an advertiser. And of course in January they ran a Yelp Deal with us. The biggest take away from this slide is the residual effect… note in the month following their Yelp Deal, February, there were more than 7700 pageviews! Yelpers are not simply “deal hunters” -- they are consumers who truly are interested in finding great local businesses and guess what…they end up becoming loyal repeat customers. How do we know this? Well, there’s data like this slide, then there are people like Diane B. (click to next slide) Vince: this screenshot was taken last week on March 2 or 3 and they are already trending toward 6000 pageviews.
Notice you see the badge on her review: She’s purchased a Yelp Deal She’s Checked in – 5 times But more importantly – her review closes with “I would have returned for fully priced treatments regardless, and am next week!” I’ll end on this slide here. This is what makes Yelp so powerful. The consumer voice. So we know that Diane B purchased a Yelp Deal for this business PSOAS Massage and Bodywork, She’s checked in here 5 times, oh and her review indicates that guess what... She’ll be back. And she’s not the only one … sure this is anecdotal.
