Marketing

Please see the video included for an overview of how our Groupon Grassroots program works. One example of our work is our campaign with City Harvest, which benefited merchants and subscribers impacted by Hurricane Sandy. Kyle, the Groupon Grassroots supervisor, worked with City Harvest to develop a compelling project idea, and our dedicated editorial team crafted a compelling and fact-based write-up for the campaign based on information that City Harvest provided. Kyle shared tools in our community resource center with City Harvest and talked with the organization about building out a promotion plan. Once the campaign went live, the organization turned its existing supporter base into evangelists to further the cause, and Groupon promoted the campaign via email, the Groupon website, and the Groupon mobile app. Together we enticed 15,619 subscribers to donate $220,410 to feed 881,640 food-insecure residents. Groupon takes no cut of any donation through Groupon Grassroots, and it even absorbs credit card fees; all donations collected go toward the cause. After the campaign ended, we asked the organization to follow up with an impact update—which we put on our website—to share its progress, engage donors, and ensure transparency about how the funds are used.

Mr.Shanmuga Sundaram is having commercial space suitable for Shopping Mall and he wants to lease the space. He made advertisement in a local newspaper. But to his surprise no potential customer knocked his door. One fine day while browsing on the Internet, Shanmuga found an interesting website www.LeaseDedo.com that exactly fits his need to post his commercial space lease offer.
He was amazed to see that the registration and posting advertisement on that website is completely free. He advertised with images on website. He waited for couple of days and got calls from potential customers all over the country. Mr.Shanmuga is very happy with that service that he was facilitated from LeaseDedo.com and he thanked it.
Yes, LeaseDedo.com provides a unique platform to its users to post their offers on Lease. The users are not only limited to post their lease offers, but also allows them to post their properties they wish to Sell or Rent too.
Not only Property Lease this is just a specific example. There are many people who want to lease their Car/Vehicle as they are going long term tours or get onsite opportunity. And people who want to lease/sell their business because of having multiple businesses in their hand and are spread across multiple cities/towns. Not that all there are also people who are offering their Ad Space be it a outdoor media like Hoarding, Gantries or be it a space on their automobile (practical examples include advertising on buses and in metro trains).
The revenue comes with the premium ad facility which is in its design phase and yet to be implemented.

“Teach a person to fish…. “
The Connecting Steps hands-on interactive workshops will introduce the framework around design thinking and co-design as creative problem solving approaches. Design-thinking uses the ability to combine empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context. Co-design emphasizes the collaborative work, which requires mutual learning between the stakeholders, creating a process that is more democratic and open.
During the workshop, participants will learn tools and techniques in the areas of discovery, definition, visualization, ideation, experimentation and implementation, and immediately apply them to the problems faced by their own organizations. The collaborative approach allows everyone to learn not only from the instructor but also from every participant in the workshop.
After the workshop the instructor will continue with a follow-up which each of the participants to aid them in the application of the skills they have learned. The Connecting Steps website and social media strategy will also allow for participants to stay in touch and learn from each others progress as they apply the concepts learned to their own organizations.

We will develop Dulce PLai the brand of natural Moldovian honey for export in Germany. We will buy the honey from young beekeepers giving them a fair price. This will increase their income and allow them to keep more bees and to produce more honey. Young beekeepers will not immigrate, will have a eco-friendly activity and the bees will pollinate the crops around and will contribute to biodiversity conservation. If the model will work it can be replicated for other agricultural businesses.

Doing charity alone is not always a permanent solution. People will get one time help and then they will be in darkness again, so what we need is a perpetual income generation technique in a sustainable way.
Model
Identify a sustainable but a small business, preferably something which could be done from home. Produce end product at lower cost and market it using a strong marketing group governed by imsocio board.
Eg: Current Idea is to implement - paper bag manufacturing unit as a pilot study
• As a first step we have identified a small viallage in a place named Kannur in Kerala, India
• Consists of 25 poor families, looking out to create a sustainable employment for them
• Created a voluntary group among themselves consisting 3 people
• Visited NGO’s, Training institute, media and investor for help

Future work:
• Create a governing body consisting of investors, imsocio representative and people to run this unit
• Create an advisory panel consisting of people from different stream to guide us in the project
• Train people and set process of manufacturing
• Manufacture and market the product
Difference to the society:
• Create employment opportunity in the bottom of the pyramid
• Link the investor with needy people
• Since the planed unit is a paper bag manufacturing unit, it will be environment friendly
• Will act a substitute of plastic bags
• If we could run our pilot study successfully, then we can replicate the model to different parts and expand it

A small gaming company was struggling to develop its business and found itself in a situation where they could not move forward nor get established in this competitive market. We studied their case and provided the company with the following solutions:
>Business Planning: we developed an in-depth business plan, remodeling the business, devising strategies and creating a functional structure, upon which the company would be able to continuously develop and grow.
>Marketing Plan: we created a comprehensive marketing plan that included market research and low cost marketing campaigns that were extremely effective in the local market.
>Company Restructuring: the strategic plan that was created detected a need to restructure the company, which we did by hiring new talents, revising the company's business model and policies, establishing new partnerships, and creating tools, processes, procedures, workflows and new methodologies in order for the company to maintain the new structure without the need for external assistance.
>Fundraising: we presented the company's business plan to potential investors, in order to obtain an investment of BRL 1.5 million.

The heart of project will be many-functional portal with system of support artists. Parts of system:
1. 100% free self-publishing (others collet commissions up to 40% incomes) will increase the number of modern Polish books and let sell it much cheaper (78% Polish didn't buy any book last year because of high prices)
2. E-learning platform will learn how to: be a entrepreneur, sell and promote own works, get new skills in order to stay more attractive for employers
3. community of readers and authors allow to exchange the ideas and experiences
4. Quarterly e-zine lets spread the idea of cultural economy and know how all over Poland
5. job fair will increase number of job offers for artists and specialists
6. crowd funding centre allows to gain money for publishing works or its promotion
7. online bookstore and e-readers center
8. marketing and PR center
9. Media/art gallery let newbies get the experience and let others to sell their arts and skills.
The main value is, the portal will be the first system initiative of the cultural economy. It will be targeted primarily for the people from the country, who are away from the latest trends and possibilities of cities and big towns, and has hampered access to culture.
The second one is avoiding of exclusion of the blinds. Thanks the project there will be much more cheap professional audiobooks with modern literature.
Portal will increase access to financing for illustrators,lectors, actors, marketers, reviewers, DTP specialists and proofreaders, whose services normally are too expensive for most self-publishers

ABURY-beyond fashion kicked off with the “BerberBags”, traditionally handcrafted vintage leather bags from Morocco. Each of the up to 80-year-old bags is a unique and individually embroidered item; a small piece of artwork.
This fascinating handicraft is at risk of extinction due to industrial mass production. Therefore, ABURY used the profits of the sales of the vintage bags to finance local sewing schools to ensure a new generation of sewers to safeguard this tradition. In cooperation with Moroccan artisans and international designers, we have developed first products- the ABURY berber ipadbag, the berberclutch and the berber iphonebag.
This is a fascinating antipode - a traditional handcrafted bag - a piece of art - is covering our western worlds gadgets. We want to show that this doesn't have to be a contradiction - but a true crossing boarders project with a meaning.
Moreover, each bag comes with a Berber fairytale. These fairytales reflect the ancient culture and wisdom of the Berbers. A storyteller has collected and recorded these fairytales from the village elders. Each BerberBag thus becomes an ambassador of its culture.
ABURY therefore supports the preservation of cultural variety and creates the opportunities for people to earn a living through the traditional capital of their culture.
50% of the profits plus donations given directly to the ABURY foundation have given us the opportunity to create the schools and e.g. the support of building a well.
Moreover we have managed to not be seen as a development project but to be a design and luxury brand.

We will:

teach 24 - 36 Mayan women about solar technology;

provided a hands-on learning experience installing solar power in a minimum of 24 homes and at least two commercial projects;

train 2 - 4 women mentors in the Circuits and Solar curriculum;

increase the capacity of our Guatemalan Engineering and Business team to teach engineering, solar design and business;

start a women's solar power cooperative;

improve air quality and health outcomes for a minimum of 24 Guatemalan families as kerosene lights in the area are replaced by solar home lighting systems;

improve economic conditions for a minimum of 24 Guatemalan families by replacing expensive kerosene lamps and by providing more hours for study and work;

install solar power on a minimum 2 small scale commercial buildings such as community centers and / or schools.

Educating women and providing them opportunity creates additional benefits. In developing countries women with more education have healthier families and their children are more likely to stay in school longer. Women who earn more invest 90% of their additional income in their families. Men, on the other hand, invest only 30 - 40% of extra earnings in their families.

Positive Change: Graduates of Circuits and Solar who join the co-op will sell solar lighting systems to households that lack electricity - a large market. In the lake Atitlan region of Guatemala where this project is located 70,000 people live in homes with no electricity. In the region just to the north electrification has reached only 60% of the population.