(See update at end) It’s beginning to feel like Groundhog Day in Small Businessville. (The movie, not February 2.) Yesterday, we shared how Apple has launched Apple Maps Connect where a small business can claim its Apple Maps listing. A few weeks ago, it was Google My Business. And then there was Amazon Local. All of these attempts to encourage small businesses to register on a site and share information about themselves is a grand tradition that dates back to, well, way before an earlier iteration of SmallBusiness.com that had 100,000 small business pages in 1999 (it’s a long story).

Today, it’s sign up for Groupon Page day.

But unlike Apple and Google Maps, signing up for your Groupon page is primarily a lead generation campaign for Groupon to identify potential new customers for their daily-deal coupon service. Rather than be led through an online verification process as you are with the others mentioned, once you type in contact information about yourself and your company and hit submit, you get a message saying someone will call you and “help you make the most of your page.” (Translation: we’re going to call and try to sell you a daily deal promotion.)

A note to reporters and bloggers who are portraying Groupon Pages as a Yelp comparison story.

Despite there being little “there” there with Groupon Pages, tech and finance writers have posted instant analysis of the Groupon Pages launch that positions it as some sort of Yelp-killing (or, at least copying) strategy.

What?

Yelp is not the most favorite service of many small businesses. (That’s an understatement.) But it influences the decisions of customers, in some cases, dramatically.

If you are covering this story and comparing Groupon to Yelp, I’ve got to ask: “Have you ever used Yelp?” Did you visit the sample Groupon page? Well, I’ve used Yelp and I can say one thing: “A Groupon Page is no Yelp.” Nor will it ever be. (More on this in a few sentences.)

What was Groupon?

Before jumping into a discussion of Groupon pages, it might be helpful to ask the question, “What is Groupon?” But that’s a little more challenging than it used to be when Groupon was new and what you recall it being. So let’s start with, “What was Groupon?”

Back in the early days (say, 2010 or so), Groupon was the first company to turn an old concept, the “daily deal,” into an internet phenomenon. They didn’t invent any one thing, but they discovered brilliantly how to put lots of things together to create an amazing machine that seemed to work great for all involved: customers, merchants and Groupon. Back then, a groupon promotional offer could generate lots of foot traffic into local businesses and lots of dollar signs in the eyes of investors.

Short version: (1) They hired talented writers and figured out a formula for creating fun, enticing descriptions of the day’s deal. (2) They put together a sales force who knew the local communities they served. (3) Instead of offering coupons, a complicated process that generates revenues only after the deal is completed, they sold vouchers (but never called them vouchers), a model that enabled them to collect the revenue at the beginning of the transaction — a bit like selling pre-paid gift cards or a book of restaurant coupons from a member of the high school band. And especially enticing to investors: Groupon could hold onto the money for a long time if, say, the vouchers weren’t used. And since they were selling something that had a face value of, say, $10, their top-line revenue number could be the full face value and not merely their slice of the transaction’s pie. (4) The deals, distributed primarily via email, required the buyer to recruit friends to buy the deal, as it appeared that a certain minimum number of customers were required to activate the deal.  (Thus, the use of the word “group” in the name Groupon.)

And all of those things worked, including the way Groupon deals would lead to lots of foot traffic into merchants (who were happy if they understood they were not going to make any money off that initial traffic). It all worked great back then, but then it started not working for a wide array of reasons that all combined to make their stock price look like this compared to the lines going up (S&P 500 and Yelp):

Share price since since March 2, 2012, the day Yelp went public. Groupon went public on November 4, 2011. Illustration: SmallBusiness.com, Source: Finance.Yahoo.Com.

What is Groupon now?

Groupon still has daily deals and, for certain types of local businesses, it can generate lots of foot traffic. However, the company has not been as successful at innovating new marketing concepts for local merchants as it was in creating its initial one. And the competition is massive. People can get dozens of daily deals from any number of sources, including their daily local news websites. And with such a flood of options, people start thinking, “I paid for a lot of vouchers I didn’t actually use.” And their friends ask them to quit trying to recruit them to buy half-priced  day spa vouchers.

So, Groupon has iterated and pivoted and tried to make their website a destination rather than depend on email. And so, answering the question now, “What is Groupon?” can lead one to look at a part of their site that hawks office supplies that have no connection to anything local and realize they are a  company that’s trying to be everything from OverStock.com to Yelp. And, when you try to be everything to everyone, well, you end up being confusing.

Why is Groupon creating local “merchant” pages?

Groupon’s current business challenge is to attract more and different types of businesses to use Groupon’s promotional services. Likewise, it needs more and more consumers to sign up to receive deals for a greater variety of products and services. By creating pages for potential merchants, Groupon hopes new companies will swing by the site and self-identify themselves by claiming their page. More merchant pages mean more chances of a Google search turning up a Groupon merchant page when seeking a nearby store. And then, there’s the over served market issue and the way we all ignore promotional email unless it’s from SmallBusiness.com

Why does Groupon refer to all small businesses as merchants?

I have no idea. I think of day spas and other Groupon mainstays as being more service provider than merchant.

Who is Groupon Pages competing with?

According to Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon CEO, in the press release announcing Groupon pages, “No one knows more about local commerce than Groupon, and we’re putting this knowledge to work for merchants and our customers.” For the record, I know of a few million local merchants who know more about local commerce than Groupon, but I’ll skip commenting on that hyperbole. However, with such a statement, Lefkofsky is declaring a multi-front war against a horde of competitors, none of whom are weak sisters:  Google, Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and LinkedIn (among dozens more).

Will Groupon pages work?

If there is a major problem merchants are having that Groupon Pages can solve uniquely, then maybe pages will help. However, it  will have no impact on Yelp. And it will have little impact on the small businesses that sign up for it–other than a phone call they’ll get from Groupon.

Update: Sure enough, exactly one week after “claiming” the company Groupon page, I was called to be pitched for Groupon services.

(Image: Help for understanding what the image means can be found on the Wikipedia page, “You are no Jack Kennedy.”)