I understand the importance of growing your business and looking for alternative revenue streams but sometimes I just think business doesn’t plan these things out really well. I got a strange email newsletter today offering me my weekly shopping deals, but I did not recall signing up for such a service and couldn’t understand how it might have got my details. That was until I noticed the shopping service it was advertising was running from subdomain 1form.shopperdeals.com.au, I recognised 1Form as a digital rental tenancy form I had tried to use last year. I don’t recall selecting to allow 1Form to use my details for promotional purposes as I’m very careful to ensure I opt-out of those type of email newsletters.
Questions that concern me about 1Form
- My 1Form account has been shut down but 1Form kept my details for marketing purposes
- 1Form is using my details to cross promote services that don’t relate to my original engagement
Why this should concern you
- If you have ever used 1Form for rental tenancy applications they keep your details
- They are using rental tenants database for promoting their other businesses
- What else have they done with your personal details you entered on your application form
What is the relevance of Shopping to real estate?
You can see below 1Form is now starting to aggressively market their discount shopping portal via their main tenants portal. The placement and call to action look sloppy and unprofessional and seems more of a desperate grab at affiliate revenue rather than offering complementary services to Tenants and Property managers such as landlord insurance.
While I strongly understand how business is looking to keep their business profitable and continue to grow to keep their investors happy but there has to be some logical link when considering a business expansion and for real estate I’m thinking discounted online shopping is a stretch.
There is a number of ways that 1Form could have expanded their business by focusing on their current customer base and just slightly adapting their product offering to fit their customers growing rental needs. The could have involved real estate related products or services such as rental insurance, bond cleaning services, new broadband connections, mobile phone services and premium tenant applications for people with pets. All of these services and cross-promotions make sense and would generate a large amount of revenue for 1Form if they bothered to do it right.
It makes more sense to match the services to the same industry as it’s possible that support questions will arise and about their new discount shopping platform. The other issue is that the spammy process of email promotion is more likely to hard any positive word of mouth the services might have generated and makes me cautious to ever use their service ever again. The main reason that 1Form would have launched the discount shopping site is their huge email marketing database and the sheer volume of daily visitors they are currently failing to monetise.
It would make business sense for 1Form to expand their services into related industries that have traditionally painful form applications such as credit cards or insurance. Having a number of non-related businesses makes it harder for 1Form to focus their business direction but may also make it harder to split up it’s operations if they ever plan to exit or float the business.
Some things 1Form should consider include:
- Does 1From get economies of scale? What are the cost advantages in this expansion besides more resources needed?
- Does 1Form get a larger Customer base? Yes, it might expand the possible customer base but the branding of the shopping experience with 1Form will confuse customers. It’s not Apple or Amazon and even Google/Microsoft brand their side businesses differently.
- Will 1Form get distracted? It’s likely that internal resources could get distracted from the primary purpose of 1Form and drop the ball leaving it’s real estate partners in the lurch.
There is no relevance for 1From
Why not ask yourself what is the relevance to Real Estate applications platform offering it’s user a weekly shopping list for discounted goods they can buy online?