Groupon’s Copywriting Style
Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent recently wrote about Groupon as an example of a business employing a strong copywriting strategy. Valeria writes,
Great copywriting is the secret sauce of successful email newsletters.
Groupon is an interesting example of promotional writing that sells, when attached to the right deals.
(See Conversation Agent: How Content Seals the Deal at Groupon.)
If you’re unfamiliar with Groupon, it’s a daily deal site, meaning they send you one knockout deal every day in the city where you live. What’s unique is their copywriting — it has a unique, twisted, oddball style to it that keeps your attention. Here’s an example:
Often used for toting memorable subpoenas or slices of deli meat, books also make for handy spots to place noteworthy photos while ensuring minimal mold growth. Preserve images in a portable and rodent-repelling format with today’s Groupon: for $35, you get $115 worth of custom-designed photo books from Photobook America. There is a limit of two Groupon purchases, but only one book and any additional copies of that book may be ordered per transaction. This Groupon cannot be used toward shipping. (Photoshop America)
The Groupon creative manager spoke at Confab and explained their process. He said they have 425 creative writers. Granted, Groupon has daily deals in more than 180+ cities across the U.S., but still, that’s a lot of writers. Many of them are young creatives, fresh with writing degrees and ambitions to put their creative talent to use.
The Groupon strategy clearly works. Except for their controversial ads, which can sometimes offend or annoy readers, their copywriting seems to be driving their business forward.
I envy their voice. At times I wish I could adopt a unique style of writing in my own organization. But I also think Groupon is trapped in their own copywriting voice. Just as it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to adopt their style in my copy, I doubt they could adopt my style in their copy. My style is plain speech, friendly but without the [forced] cleverness, honest but not pushing the edge [of logic], thoughtful but not [weirdly] analytical. Regardless, Groupon shows us the power of engaging writing. It’s what’s making Groupon stand out.
Mmm… interesting.
I guess different styles appeal to different audience. The Groupon writing style seems a little distractive for technical things. Anyway, it’s beneficial for a writer to try various ways of writing.
Yeah, quirky wouldn’t work as a technical writing style. It’s more of a web fingerprint that helps them stand out.
That writing style has been used even before Groupon by CDbaby, Woot.com, and ThinkGeek, among others. Quirkiness can be funny in moderation, but I find it becoming more trite and tedious lately. Perhaps the technique continues to work because it’s not necessarily old to everyone else. But I’d find the genre more tolerable if I could read what I need to know in the first sentence or two and then skip over the rest. After all, that’s the goal in good newswriting. Could “structured quirky copywriting” or “progressive quirky disclosure” be far behind as a technique?
Don, I agree with your perspective. Quirky copywriting is becoming less unusual, and it is trite. It’s kind of like the writer is saying hey, look at me, I’m breaking all the conventional rules. But I’m more interested in the message than the quirky style.
I would agree about trite and tedious. I find Groupon’s style incredibly grating, and it’s had a ripple effect on a lot of other writing out there. For instance, I’m interested in customer reviews of local restaurants. Chowhound used to have a thriving message board. These days it’s slowed way down, and some foodies I’ve talked to think everyone’s migrated over to Yelp. But Yelp is now almost unbearable, because just about every reviewer seems to be aping Groupon’s breezy, quirky style (poorly, at that).
It is a really pretentious way of writing, since it focuses the attention on the “cleverness” of the writer more than the subject. I agree that this quirky style is becoming trite and annoying.
I do like how groupon engages their customer in their writing. It definitely provides a fun user experience which keeps people willing to read over their copy just for the entertainment factor. I came across a daily deals web site called http://www.qualifythedeal.com last week and it looks pretty promising… They’re focusing on sporting good daily deals.
I worked for 6 months as a freelancer for a Web site that’s similar to Groupon, Tuango.ca. While not as quirky or “cleverly funny” as some Groupon texts, my creations were definitely geared towards engaging the potential customer. These small texts are made to catch people’s attention and make them buy fast, after all.
Anyways, I was often encouraged by the company to use jokes or other figures of speech so I could catch the reader’s attention. I guess it’s the general kind of marketing prevalent in that industry, which obviously works because I could see the amount of people buying coupons from Tuango rising pretty much every week.
While I’m now into technical writing and liking it, that job was a lot of fun because it was rather simple while asking for a lot of creativity on my part. As a writer, I considered this job challenging and rewarding.
It’s interesting that you saw the sales rising (presumably correlated with the more creative copy). There is something to be said for adopting a memorable style.
Tom, in musing about your writing style compared to Groupon’s, are you referring to your technical documentation? If so, my
question is, why would a tech writer want to write this way? It’s distracting, enigmatic, and unclear–all traits technical documentation should be never possess.
Speaking strictly from a consumer perspective, however, I tend to distrust copywriting like this; Being funny is okay, but after awhile I start to wonder what the writers are trying to hide.
I’m not talking about adopting Groupon’s style in technical documentation. That would be disastrous. I’m thinking of the style more for web copywriting.
The problem with many web sites is that they’re stuck in the past… Groupon has adapted this unique writing style that keeps web users engaged. It’s not boring corporate speak… Web companies that have people trained in internet marketing understand that its all about the user experience. It’s a fact that most users on the internet skim. Your message may not get picked up if people skim your content. What web creatives have done is create a fun, entertaining way to get the message across consistently.
With all respect to previous commentators, only one thing matters: Does it work? Have they tested the content and found that offers with quirky write-ups sell more than those without?
By “more”, I mean quite a lot more – enough to justify the salaries of their 400 or more writers.
I’d guess they have.
If not, they’re idiots.
And they should keep testing, because to my mind their style may be popular now but could go out of style quite quickly.
I write content for a couple of e-commerce sites and you almost have to be quirky or creative to break through the copy and paste type stuff. Descriptions largely sound the same, and at some point the consumer is going to have to pick one website to utilize.While some might consider it trite, i’m pretty sure that quirky language also aids in organic SEO.
I’m pretty sure I would love to drive this car through the city just as well as the country
I personally need recipes with pictures to help me make a dish if I’ve never done it before.
The maintenance and upkeep for these cars can be very expensive
Isn’t the main goal of writing copy for a daily deal to communicate information about that deal? Groupon copy is annoying and hinders readers from getting the information they need. I have not found one person who has some experience with using Groupon who doesn’t skip over the first few sentences in order to get to information they need. If you are writing something that people purposefully try to avoid, then your writing is a failure. And don’t get me started on the stupid cat…
Chris, I think people’s responses to Groupon’s copywriting style are quite polarized: some love it, and others hate it. However, I think their style is connected to their success. Otherwise they wouldn’t continue down the path they do.
From my experience, some hate it, most tolerate it and few love it. Actually, who do you know that loves it? I haven’t spoken with anyone who does. No one in this comment stream has said that either.
What evidence do you have that their writing style is connected to their success? I would love to hear from these thousands of people you know who buy Groupons because they have such a quirky writing style. Seriously, it isn’t that complicated. Their success is due to the fact that they developed an original site to deliver coupons to people in a down economy.
My company has used Groupon and gathered market information on the people who bought our Groupon. Trust me, this group is not using Groupon because they have a quirky writing style. I spoke to one customer who bought our groupon and told me it was her first groupon purchase ever. She then asked me what our groupon text meant. She said she it didn’t make any sense and confused her. She also asked if it was supposed to be funny? I’m sure in time she will learn to just skip over the first few sentences to find the information she needs. Just more proof that their writing style is a failure.