Let it be no secret: I’m totally into SnapChat. In fact, my lofty goal for the summer is to eviscerate all other communication mediums on my cellphone — text, calling, facebook, twitter, etc. — and go SnapChat exclusive. I think it’d be funny.
That’s not the point today.
Towards the end of June, SnapChat raised $60 million in funding. So I’m not the only one who thinks this app is huge…but the difference is, those other guys are also of the impression that this app can make lots and lots of money. Right now, I can send pictures with doodles and notes on them.
So here’s a first stab at SnapChat for business: Groupon on steroids.
I don’t mean the minimum-threshold-coupon part, but rather, the instantaneous, exciting coupon part. “On steroids,” because it’s not a daily deal or even an hourly deal. You’ve literally got ten seconds between opening the coupon and completing the transaction.
If Dunkin’ Donuts, or some other brick and mortar giant, wanted to make a big, awesome PR splash, I think they could pull this off without even setting up a formal campaign with SnapChat brass — it’d be a free marketing platform, minus the cost of the coupon. Steps as follows:
- DD tells everyone, “Follow ‘DunkinDonuts’ on SnapChat. We’re giving away a ridiculous deal on Monday next week.”
- It’s fairly easy to send mass Snaps — but DD shouldn’t send the exact same thing to everyone. Otherwise, people might just wait for one person on the internet to spoil the surprise. Maybe send 40% a free doughnut, 45% a coffee, 4.8% a box of doughnuts/munchkins, 0.1% doughnuts for a year, and 0.1% a stupid doodle worth nothing. (In case you needed reminding, SnapChat is supposed to be silly, risky, and funny.) Ideally, you’ll diversify even further.
- You receive the Snap. You can’t open it yet — you physically have to be in the store, in front of the cashier where she can see it. Otherwise it’ll expire.
- Regular coupon rules apply…although opened coupons expire in 10 seconds, and unopened SnapChats are already automatically deleted in something like 60 days, anyway, so you’re pretty covered there.
- Repeat, bearing in mind that DD can probably lower the odds of success a fair bit once it gets going.
Of course, now that you’ve got everyone’s attention, you can start sending SnapChats regularly. And have fun! Doughnuts with strange doodles on them. Puppies with doughnuts on their heads. A four second photo SnapChat is in my mind without question the absolute lowest threshold for entertainment the world has ever seen — and here’s a world that’s had Twitter for the last half decade.
Just this week we’ve seen that even the most inept, curmudgeonly organization in the country, the TSA, can pull off a successful and humorous social media campaign. So cheers to you, SnapChat and brick & mortar company. Good luck. I have high hopes.
Haha Snapchat exclusive communications eh? That’d be pretty difficult, but if you can pull it off that’d be impressive. I like the idea of a snap chat campaign. You said it’s easy to send mass texts, but is there some way to segment your list or is it all manual?
Hey GS&F,
My impression is that it’s manual for now, and that the first campaigns might take a fair bit of analog labor. (It’s okay; that’s what unpaid interns are for, right?)
I wouldn’t be surprised if in the very, very immediate future we begin to see companies offering software suites to help manage your SnapChat account the same way, say, Hootsuite manages Twitter or SurveyMonkey manages email. (Apparently, given those examples, the company will need to be animal-themed.) Seems like it’d be a great niche that nobody’s really tapped yet…or maybe it’s part of the monetization plans that the Snapchat team has on its own horizon going forward.