So you have been running your deal business with Daily Deal Builders deal platform for a while… Your subscriber base may begin to get “deal fatigue?” You’re not the first and won’t be the last. It happens to the best of ‘em and is imperative that you take steps to overcome deal fatigue.
Deal Fatigue occurs when people start to get immune to the deals and emails that you send them because of the frequency and amount of deals they are exposed to.
Much of deal fatigue comes from email fatigue. Getting your email broadcasts past an ISP’s deliverability standards alone is a significant barrier. Getting your emails opened and links clicked is an entirely different barrier. Recent studies show that many daily deal subscribers are subscribed to multiple other deal sites as well.
When deal fatigue sets in, a few major things occur:
- Your sales conversion rates become lower…
- Your email open and click-through rates become lower…
- Equating to lower revenues…
No bueno! Let’s dive right in to discuss ways to overcome both email fatigue & deal fatigue and keep your subscriber base active and just as excited about your deals as they were the first time they ever ordered a daily deal. Just because retail stores in the USA can not replicate “Black Friday” on a daily or evenweekly basis, does not mean that your daily deal site won’t be able to do that. On the contrary.
Follow this 10 step plan to keep your subscribers happy, coming back for more, and telling their friends about you.
1. Track Everything
When you properly track everything, it gives you actual data that you can use to make educated business decisions. Track purchase behavior, email open rates and subjects lines used, email click-through rates, and the amount of time your visitors are staying on your site. Giving your customer exactly what they want is done by using, analyzing, and acting upon data.
You can use services like Google Analytics or Crazy Egg (among others) to help accurately track data.
2. Always Be Optimizing (ABO)
Once you track purchase behavior and conversion rates, you can put more focus into optimizing your promotions. Split testing the emails that you send to your subscriber base gives you superb insight into the type of subject lines that get the most open rates, and the type of emails that receive the most clicks and result in the most sales. Remember, the only way to properly optimize your website and promotions, is by using data.
Google Website Optimizer is a free and easy to use tool that allows you to perform split tests and analyze results.
3. Offer ‘Smart’ Deals
What I mean here is any deal that takes into account a customer’s purchase history. If someone buys a trip to Costa Rica, the next deal they should be offered should be a rental car service, a zip-line tour in Costa Rica, hotel accommodations, etc. Each deal that is purchased can be followed up with a related service that makes more sense for that customer to buy.
One thing that most deal sites are not fully capitalizing upon is the use of one time offers. Right after someone purchases a voucher, you could offer a One Time Offer of a related service or product that makes sense for the customer to order. You would be surprised at how much additional revenue can be gained by using a 1 time offer and even more so if it only takes 1 click to add the additional item to the order.
4. Run Surveys
Just ask people what you can do to make their experience more enjoyable and what kind of deals and promotions they would like to see more of. They might just tell you.
SurveyMonkey.com is a free online survey and questionnaire tool that makes this process rather easy.
5. Provide Friendly, Timely, and Knowledgeable Support
People really like dealing with friendly people who can help them out. Putting focus into supporting your current customer base will help ensure those customers keep coming back. Gaining brand loyalty in the deal space is much harder because folks are primarily loyal to getting great deals over loyalty to a deal site itself.
Use help desk software like ZenDesk or SolveSupport to help you most effectively manage your support department.
6. Continue Growing Your Subscriber Base
Always have a major focus into growing your user base. You will surely have people opting out of your emails and not only do you need to be replacing those people, you need to add much more because many folks won’t opt out, but rather just start to ignore your emails. It’s inevitable. Use multiple strategies to grow your list of fans and increase revenue.
7. Think Outside the Box
Don’t just follow the leader. Groupon and Living Social haven’t figured everything out and there is plenty of room for innovation. Be different. Be amazing. Think outside the box about your deal business and put yourself in your prospects shoes. What would make you suddenly fall in love with your company?
8. Use Incentives & Gamification
Make it fun and exciting for your subscribers to visit your site. Use further incentives to encourage your users to share your emails and deals, and tell their friends. User generated recommendations are powerful and crucial to the success of a deal business. Gamification can do wonders and really is what investors are looking for.
9. Run Remarkable Deals & Content
Providing remarkable content and world class deals is the easiest way to have your subscribers remark, make purchases, and advertise for you. Nothing trumps well crafted stories, deals, and benefits because they will naturally spread from your subscribers to their friends. The core component of really any deal business relies on offering great deals.
10. Properly Segment Your Subscriber Base
Segmenting by location, level of engagement, age, gender, and type of products purchased are great ways to customize your message and better connect with your users. Folks who have never opened your emails should be put on a separate list and you can experiment with different ways to engage with them.
Folks who open every email and click every link should be on a separate email list and you are probably reaching those most effectively already.
Are your subscribers experiencing deal fatigue? What are you doing about it?
Marc D. Horne
Daily Deal Builder
