“Mobile coupons are going mainstream,” Juniper Research analyst David Snow said in a statement.

“Cost-effective mobile coupon campaigns are now within the reach of smaller retailers, providing them with an easy way to drive profitable footfall and build customer loyalty. To ignore the potential of mobile coupons would be to ignore the future of mobile commerce.”

“Handled properly, the mobile coupon builds customer loyalty.”

Pretty compelling stuff we think and The Specials Board provides you with the perfect opportunity to get on board and capitalise on this huge growth industry with no cost and no hassle.

Firstly a report from independent app store GetJar, has predicted that app downloads will reach a staggering 50 Billion by the end of 2012 which represents a huge leap since it last reported 7 Billion downloads in 2009.

Secondly and perhaps surprisingly given the staggering numbers quoted above ComScore revealed recently that fewer than 50% of mobile phones currently in use in the USA is a smart phone (i.e. able to download, install and use apps) – although this is changing rapidly.

How these figures relate to Australia is a moot point, but this demonstrates if nothing else, that we are still nowhere near the peak of smartphone and app usage.

According to the survey 2/3rds of the people polled said they would like to receive location based discounts, more specifically either on fuel or restaurant coupons and vouchers. According to the boss of NavTeq ““Australians are open to receiving location-based discounts and promotions, in the form of display advertising on the phone, as long as they offer real and immediate value. When offers are location-targeted, they become that much more relevant for a consumer.”

Umm yes, that’s exactly what we think too Mr NavTeq!

*Sigh*

Fine as many of those sites are, we’re not really like them at all, and I find myself several times a week explaining exactly why…. So naturally the thought occurred to me that I should write a blog explaining why we are different and (of course in my view) better!

1) You don’t have to “buy” our vouchers.

The Specials Board app is free, and always will be, and you don’t have to pay a cent to use our vouchers. With a daily deal site, you have to “buy” the deal in order to use it.

2) You can use the deal at any point.

So you’ve “bought” a daily deal… what usually follows is that you then have to scramble to book a table ahead of the thousands of others that have also bought (hence the “group” bit in group deals). With The Specials Board app you can use the offers when you are out and about, whenever you want – no need to plan ahead – just check to see what is available and use it. Simple as that.

3) The deals come direct from the merchants.

Our system has a (very clever) web back end where the merchants post up the offers themselves and can see how well they perform. Usually this will mean they offer a deal which leaves a little bit of profit in for them, but is attractive enough for you to want to use (or if not you just vote with your feet and they’ll change the deal). We don’t compel the venues to give a huge discount which has lead to some horror stories, we’ve even heard of some venues going out of business….So,with our system, you get a deal you like and your favourite venue gets to carry on being your favourite venue!

4) It’s discreet.

Simply show your phone to your server to get your deal.  You won’t feel like you’re cheap by waving a bit of paper around, which also means…….

5) We’re eco friendly! You don’t need to print anything out.

Yup, we’re saving the planet, one coupon at a time.

6) We don’t clog up your inbox.

Yes, from time to time we’ll send you an email to tell you about new deals and new venues to come on board, but no, we won’t email every day with another paint-balling or bikini wax deal – we promise!

One of the most common comments we’ve had here at The Specials Board is “the iPhone app looks great, but I’ve got an HTC” (you can substitute HTC with Samsung Galaxy S/Xperia/a number of other handsets running android) – so over the last 6 weeks we’ve been resolving that ‘issue’ and developing a version of the app for android.

Because the app has a cloud based backend which supplies all the voucher information, you will find many of the same features from the iOS version on android, although with a few little tweaks unique to android.

It’s really easy to enter all you need to do is:

1. Visit a TSB venue
2. Buy something (not necessarily with an offer but why not?)
3. Take a picture of the receipt.
4. Send it to the email address you will find on one of the “Win a Meal for 2″ vouchers on the app.

At the end of June, we will pull a lucky winner at random from all the people who emailed in! Too easy!

Terms and conditions:
Draw takes place at the discretion of WH Mobile PTY Ltd.
This prize is not exchangeable for cash, in part or in full.
The winner will be notified via their email account and must supply us with their contact details.
Prize value is correct at time of publication, but no responsibility is taken for any variation in the value of the prize.
WH Mobile PTY Ltd will not be held responsible for the loss, theft or damage to any prize after it has been awarded, or for any injury that results directly or indirectly from this promotion.
WH Mobile PTY Ltd’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered in to.
WH Mobile PTY Ltd can amend the terms & conditions of the prize draw without prior notice.
By entering the prize draw, entrants will be deemed to have accepted these terms & conditions.

Search

We’re changing the way the app works when you first load it up. All the clever stuff like finding a location and connecting to the server will happen in the background, but you’ll be able to do simple search for what you want straight away. Don’t worry, the GPS will still filter your results, but now you can find the nearest place with a lunch deal, or even search by location if you want to plan for later.

Favourite

Love one of the venues on the specials board, and just want to check quickly what they have on offer? No problem, as of this next release you can save “merchants” to your favourites folder, which will show all of their live vouchers and deals.

Share

Love a deal, and want to share it with your mates? Easy….. we’ve integrated facebook into the app, so with one touch you can send a status update to your page/share deals with your friends.

Android

Not only are we improving our iPhone app, but we’re also bring all the TSB “going out goodness” to android. That deserves another post in itself, so watch this space!

Whilst I suppose I should applaud their efforts from an SEO point of view, review sites optimising themselves ahead of the actual venues in a google is a particular bugbear of mine! Google the names of 5 places you know and I bet 4 of them will not be in the first 5 results. (For all intent and purposes when we talk about search, we are talking about google.) So lets all try and put a stop to that!

I suppose the best way to start is to ask the question “What would I do if I had a (new) restaurant (/cafe/bar) and wanted to promote it on the web and social media?”

1) Sign up for a Google webmaster tools account and analytics account (you will need to paste tracking code into every page on your site). In a nutshell: One tells you how google is indexing your site, the other how visitors find and interact with your web pages. If you are selling anything through your site (i.e. recipe books) you can even integrate analytics into your shopping cart.

2) Build and submit a sitemap.xml through your webmaster tools accounts (this tells Google about the pages on your site – in case it has missed any). There are plenty of free sitemap generators around.

3) Meta tags – these help tell google about the content of each page. So they should be unique and relevant. Most important are the title tags (these show up as the title in the search results and also in the title bar of your browser) – for example for the home page, you would want something like <title> James cafe | Cafe in Bondi | Coffee in Bondi</title> not, repeat not <title>Home page </title>. Plenty more information about this here.

4) Content. Don’t just reply on images and pdf menus. Write plenty of interesting copy, have a news/blog section and keep adding content to your site as often as you can. Google loves fresh content.

5) Links, links and more links. The #1 most important factor in my experience is the number, and quality of links you have pointing in to your site. Friends/suppliers/directories are all good sources (provided they are not pertain to dubious subject matter).  More information here

6) Enter the blogosphere! If I had a new venue, or a new menu (and I had faith in it) I would invite as many reviews from influential bloggers as possible. There are a few lists in the public domain (kudos to Jenius for that one) or you can do your own research. If you have something good to talk about, these guys (if they like it) will do it for you. They might even give you a link. You never know…!

7) Tweet. Get yourself on twitter and start following the influential food twitterers – again there are lists for this sort of thing, you know the drill by now….

8 ) Sign up for a Google Places account and get local!

9) Sign up for a Facebook Page (note: this is not the same as a profile) and a Facebook Places account. If you are feeling particularly brave then you can merge your Page and Places page. Soon we’ll be adding facebook connectivity to the app, which will be able to integrate with your Facebook presence and show check-ins etc. Facebook is a great way of creating a community feel for regulars to your venue, and can also give you access to their network of friends….

10) Last, but certainly not least sign up to the specials board, and start marketing your offers to customers near you!

The above list is certainly not exhaustive, and indeed is really only a starter for 10. To get more deeply involved with on page and off page ranking factors check out the Google webmaster central forum and the seomoz blog.

The first Melbourne venues have hit The Specials Board this week, offering Melburnians access to the same sorts of great deals Specials Board Sydney users have been enjoying since November.

Melbourne is well known for it’s vibrant cafe society and award winning bar and restaurant scene, and The Specials Board will be bringing local app users some exclusive vouchers from some of the leading venues in the Victorian Capital.

We’ve kicked off with some great offers from Melbourne institutions like feedmee in Balaclava and Prahan, Pizza e Birra in St Kilda, and Cristal nightclub and The Imperial in South Yarra. Many more venues will be coming on “board” over the next few weeks.

Watch this space!

We’ve been talking to a huge range of venues, and we expect many to come on board in 2011. We’ve tried to keep a nice variety of establishments and offers, from drinks deals, to % discounts off food. Latest venues to be come on board include Blue Orange in Bondi, Bistrofax in the CBD, La Tana in Surry Hills and the Ocean Room on Circular Quay.

Changes to the app:

We’ve had some great feedback from our users so far. Overwhelming this has been extremely positive, but there are a few tweaks which we are going to implement in the app over the next month or so including; search by postcode (as opposed to relying on the GPS), facebook connect (so users can tell their friends about the offers on their facebook page) and a last minute section for special discounts.

Plans for later in the year, include a smarter search interface, including a search based upon “history”, notifications, ratings for offers, and favourite venues. We’re also going to port this over to Nokia, Android and Windows Mobile 7 devices in due course.

Changes to the web:

We’re going to implement a “sneak peek” on the website, to show people without the app, exactly what they are missing! Our support section, will be developed and optimized for viewing on mobile devices.