Daily Deal Builder | Daily Deal Software

(Video Training) Closing More Sales, Offer additional value added services, deliver more value to your merchants, and hopefully generate more revenue

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:23:23 +0000

On 5-15-2013 we held a DailyDealBuilder training presentation and discussed strategies to close more sales, offer additional value added services, deliver more value to your merchants, and hopefully generate more revenue for your daily deal business venture.

As a daily deal site owner, you must look beyond the daily deal industry and offer and deliver additional services, value and long term results to your merchants. Creating a win for your merchant will help ensure that they want to work with you again.

Download the PDF of the slides by right clicking and saving here.

As always, if you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to send us an email, give us a call, or leave us a comment below. I am always open to hear about your sales and persuasion techniques and how you are helping your merchants acquire new, and loyal customers.

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne

To learn more about our daily deal software platform and training solutions, we invite you to visit DailyDealBuilder.com

Daily Deal Sites Must Look Beyond the Daily Deal Industry

admin — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:10:34 +0000

Let’s face it, one of most common objections negative investors and naysayers have of the daily deal industry’s future is that the barrier to entry is too low. To launch a daily deal website, or a deal component to your existing company and become a small – medium sized player in the deal industry can be accomplished relatively easily.

The savvy business owner can do it without VC’s, as small businesses have an incredible opportunity with the growth of crowdfunding opportunities. Instead of getting a few companies or individuals with a lot of money to invest, you get a lot of regular individuals to invest a little amount of money. You could do it without a huge team, or even large advertising budget. Run a powerful contest, implement a solid guerilla marketing campaign, focus on building subscribers, and solid relationships with subscribers and merchants, and you’re on your way.

You could actually put yourself in a position to compete with the bigger players. I’m not suggesting competing on a large scale initially, but instead, focus on one particular geographic market in which Groupon or Living Social is currently offering deals. People like supporting the local community, and unfortunately Groupon and Living Social are too big, too well known, and too large to come across as a hidden gem or town hero type of website.

I do however believe that in order to really compete, and build out a long-term, sustainable, and profitable business, you must go well beyond the Daily Deal Industry and offer and deliver additional services, value and long term results to your merchants. Don’t get me wrong, the daily deal industry is not going anywhere… People have always and will always love getting deals, and merchants will always want to run some form of advertising campaigns in order to bring in new customers, but the fact is that some businesses shouldn’t run a daily deal, period.

That doesn’t mean they do not want new customers, more exposure, traffic, and customer loyalty. I’d go as far to guess that the majority of businesses that deal sites work with may just benefit from a website re-design, SEO help, video services, organic and paid traffic help, photography services, Google Places listings, Social Media help, mobile applications, etc…

Deal sites with a lot of money can acquire smaller companies to help with the above. Smaller deal sites could skip the acquisition hassle and simply broker deals and build strategic partnerships with the right companies or skilled web professionals.

Yes, as a deal site, your primary and initial motivation is most likely to sign a business up for a 50/50 split and run a deal for them, and potentially broker the deal on additional deal sites or traffic sources; but the companies who understand their prospect’s actual needs, will be able to refine their pitch, refine their offerings, and strategically help the business truly meet their goals.

To become a company that truly helps businesses acquire new and loyal customers, the relationship must not stop at simply running a deal.

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne
Daily Deal Builder

I originally published this article on Daily Deal Media

Cyber Security

admin — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:46:40 +0000

In the past few months there have been a number of high-profile companies coming under cyber attack. The most recent one in the deal industry was LivingSocial, in which 50 million user accounts were compromised, with the attackers gaining “unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers,” according to the company CEO.

Thankfully no credit card data was compromised, but this event highlights the significance of online security in the evolving digital age.

Another interesting event in recent weeks happened when the Syrian Electronic Army gained access to the Twitter account of the Associated Press, and tweeted that President Obama was injured in explosions at the White House. The immediate effect of this was that the DOW Jones Industrial Average lost $140 billion, 1% of its value, in just 90 seconds. The DOW quickly corrected itself when traders realized the tweet was fake, but again, this highlights the importance of keeping digital information and websites secure.

We are going to continue seeing news articles about companies see their Twitter and Facebook accounts get hacked. Be sure that whomever has access to your companies social media pages knows the importance of keeping their login credentials secure. Using capital letters and random numbers for your passwords can always help, also.

(Video) 20 Sure-Proof Strategies to Grow Your Business, Generate More Revenue, & Help Your Community

admin — Fri, 03 May 2013 20:19:11 +0000

We were lucky enough to be able to render out the recording from our Daily Deal Builder training webinar held on May 3rd, 2013.

We discuss 20 different strategies and ideas that you can implement in your daily deal business to grow your brand, audience, and revenues. These strategies can apply to a broader spectrum aside from just deal sites. Nearly all web-based and offline businesses are actively looking to grow their audience and revenues.

Get comfortable, grab a pen and paper, download the slides by right clicking and saving here, and enjoy.

Each business has a unique team and skill set, so chose the strategies that best fit in with your companies strengths and avoid those where your weaknesses exist. Map out a SWOT Analysis and have your team do so too. This will help you get a more clear understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

The 20 strategies / ideas that we discussed are as follows:

1. Getting a boat load of free press and publicity.
2. Getting guerrilla with it.
3. Distribute swag / paraphernalia
4. Holding on-going contests
5. Retargeting and Piggybacking
6. Get Referrals and affiliate Commissions
7. Hold viral social campaigns
8. Pay for traffic, clients, exposure
9. Optimization and A/B split testing
10. Release remarkable content
11. Collect, analyze, & act upon data
12. Forward to a friend or give as a gift
13. The Freebies
14. The 7P’s
15. Step away from the computer screen
16. Better your community
17. Have superior customer support
18. Be a flexible business
19. Use humor
20. Make moves

If you have any specific questions, email them on over to us at support@hcdesk.com or feel free to leave us a comment below.

Make moves today,
Marc Horne
Co-Founder, DailyDealBuilder.com
800-794-7192

The History of Coupons and Daily Deals

admin — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:08:18 +0000

With so much drama surrounding the daily deal industry, it makes many wonder whether the daily deal phenomenon is fizzling out?

I’ll give you the short answer. No.

To really understand the daily deal industry and model, we need to start by looking back to coupons, which have been around for thousands of years…

Well, maybe not thousands of years. The first documented case of the brilliant advertising technique that essentially gives customers something for nothing is documented in 1887. Atlanta based company, Coca-Cola, transformed their business from an insignificant tonic into a profitable powerhouse by using innovative advertising techniques.

Asa Candler, Coca-Cola’s founder, implemented an ingenious marketing strategy which included having the company’s employees and sales representatives distribute complimentary coupons for Coca-Cola. Coupons were mailed to potential customers and placed in magazines. The company gave coupons for a free drink, which were 5 cents at the time.

Estimates show that between 1894 and 1913 one in nine Americans had received a free Coca-Cola, for a total of 8.5 Million free drinks. By 1895 Candler announced to shareholders that Coca-Cola was served in every state in the United States.

Today, they are the most well known brand in the world and many might argue their use of coupons helped get them there.

Since then, businesses around the globe took notice of the coupon and began acquiring new customers by giving great deals and coupons to them. Tens of millions of consumers have used coupons.

Although the documented first use of coupons only goes back to 1887, I can only envision market vendors thousands of years ago letting consumers try taste tests before they buy, and consumers haggling with vendors to get better deals. 2 apples for the price of 1 anyone?

The human desire to get a great deal and receive more value than we pay for is nothing new.

Fast forward to the early 1990’s when the internet was invented, and it comes as no surprise that savvy merchants began offering coupons online, and thrifty consumers began downloading them. In fact, the demand continues to grow as more and more consumers gain access to the internet and smart phones.

Using coupons and daily deals has been and will continue to be a superb way for businesses to acquire new customers and turn them into loyal fans.

Just like Coca-Cola, however, the businesses utilizing coupons and daily deals must be confident in their product or service so they can take an initial loss in order to grow new fans.

Daily Deals are essentially coupons that are offered for a limited time, typically for only one day, hence the name daily deal. Often times, the customer can simply download the coupon for free; other times they pay for the coupon in advance and simply redeem them before they expire.

Yes, offering coupons and daily deals has transformed and helped many businesses grow, however, it can easily go wrong.

Sometimes the daily deal site messes it up by sending in overzealous sales reps to lock in deals. Unknowing business owners might agree to run a coupon or daily deal without fully understanding the ramifications, and the fact that doing so will put their business in the red. Far too often, a daily deal is destined to fail before it is even run.

The only businesses who should offer coupons and daily deals are the ones who are proud of their product or service, and know that they can turn one time users into repeat customers.

To do it right, the business must not only be confident in their product and service, but properly follow up and encourage the daily deal customer to become a loyal fan.

What do we know?

We know the “idea” behind the daily deal works. People are more likely to make a purchase when there are time limits and scarcity tactics in play.

We know that the majority of people enjoy getting a great deal or discount, right? We also know that people have been bargaining and trying to get deals on all sorts of items since… well, since before our times.

We know that the internet and smart phone devices have made consumers wiser and give them ability to research companies and search for deals and coupons while on the way to the merchant.

Advertising mediums change often; solid marketing strategies are timeless.

In 1887, Coca-Cola reps were giving out coupons in person and running them in magazines. In 2008, folks started downloading and redeeming coupons on their mobile devices and phones.

The mediums used has grown and evolved, but the strategy remains the same. Give a consumer a deal to come into your business and win them over by over delivering and exceeding their expectations.

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne
DailyDealBuilder.com

I originally published this article on Daily Deal Media.

How To Get More Sales

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:57:27 +0000

One of foremost missions of daily deal websites is to convert visitors to subscribers, subscribers to buyers, and buyers to repeat buyers. As your deal site grows, it is important to remember to focus on optimizing your results. If the amount of traffic your website receives does not increase, you can still generate more leads and sales by increasing your sales and option conversion rates.

The reality of it is that the only way to accurately determine what will convert better and generate you more leads and sales is to perform split tests.

I personally use sites such as Whichtestwon.com on a daily basis to see actual split test results. Over time, you will begin to learn what will convert better and have a better understanding of human behavior on websites.

There is no better way to optimize your website and generate more sales and leads than performing A/B split tests using a split test tool such as Google Website Optimizer.

We can give our clients tips on how to increase conversion rates through sales and persuasion, copy and page design, but the honest answer to the question of “how can I get more sales,” is a reply of “split test what you are currently doing with something else.”

Over time and from our experience, we have learned that the primary psychological factors that are helping our daily deal publishers get more sales are:

Using proper scarcity tactics such as unit and timer countdowns: If only a couple items remain available, or only a few more hours or minutes are left in the promotion, conversion rates rise. Fear of missing out on a great deal is powerful.
Offering discounts from regular prices: This and the scarcity tactics mentioned above are the 2 primary ways that daily deal sites experience higher conversion rates than the average e-commerce website.
Show social proof: Amazon does a great job of this by making customer reviews and social proof a primary selling point. Adding the ability for prospects and customers to comment on your offering can often times help increase your conversion rates.
Showcase benefits as opposed to features: People are more concerned with what a product will do for them than they are with how, or why, it will do that for them.
Time the promotions properly: Certain products and services sell better at different times of the day, days of the week, and months out of the year. Right now, just after taxes are due, might not be the best time to sell Turbo Tax software, for example.
Incentivize buyers and prospects to want to remark, give testimonials and reviews, and share your stuff. Prospect’s buying decisions are influenced by their friends and family more so than images or copy on a sales page.
Make it easy to buy: When I login to Amazon, I have the ability to order items with one simple click. This makes me buy more items. The easier we can make it for our customers to buy and the more time we can save them, the higher our conversions become.
Be there for your clients and support them: No matter what industry or product is being sold, when a company stands behind their offerings and provides personal and excellent support, it helps increase your conversion rates and turn one time buyers into repeat buyers and fans of your site.
Capture the prospects information if they don’t buy: When someone leaves your website, there is a chance they may never return. Focusing on increasing the rate at which site visitors become subscribers will in turn increase your conversion rates and enable you to more easily bring this visitor back to your website.
Focus on providing value: When a primary focus is to provide value to your subscribers and prospects, it becomes more apparent that you are there to help them as opposed to just trying to squeeze every sale possible. Do your best to not pester your prospect and you might find that less of your subscribers say “how the heck do I stop this website from emailing me?”

What are some things you have done to increase your conversion rates?

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne
DailyDealBuilder.com

I originally published this article on Daily Deal Media.

Free Coupons?

admin — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:20:54 +0000

We at Daily Deal Builder, with our company and offices in Atlanta, have watched and used Scoutmob since their inception. When we saw Scoutmob hit the stage we thought “well this is exciting and great for the industry.”

Scoutmob really sets themselves apart from their competitors because their model has one, simple difference from other sites like Groupon or Living Social; their coupons are FREE. Amazing.

With the success of sites across the globe, and the re-invention of ‘couponing,’ Scoutmob really put a new spin on the deal industry.

When picking a new restaurant for date night, how much more likely is it that you download a free coupon from a deal site versus paying a deal site for the same coupon?

I think almost everyone would take the free coupon, and that’s exactly why we built a Free Coupon plugin for Daily Deal Builder.

Now, you wonder how deal sites that offer free coupons make money, right?

So what they do is they keep track of each and every coupon that is actually used at the vendor’s location and the vendor pays them a pre-agreed upon amount per coupon that is downloaded and redeemed.

Daily Deal Builder Training Discussing Search Engine Optimization and Raising Conversion Rates

admin — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:48:01 +0000

April 12, 2013 we held a Daily Deal Builder training webinar where we discussed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and tips on raising your conversion rates.

Luckily, the technology gods were on our side and we were able to successfully render out the recording.

Grab a pen and paper, click play, and enjoy.

To download the PDF of the slides from this presentation, right click and save here. (Opens in a new link)

If you have any additional questions or feedback – shoot us an email to support@hcdesk.com

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne
DailyDealBuilder.com
800-794-7192

Daily Deal Builder 3.0 Frequently Asked Questions & Answers

admin — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:41:31 +0000

Your questions answered…

We have received a huge response from our Daily Deal Builder 3.0 promotion…

Many of the exact same questions are pouring into our support desk, so I know you have many of the same ones too.

How does Daily Deal Builder 3.0 work?

DDB sets you up a platform to sell physical or downloadable products, or just coupons for those products. You can sell your own products, affiliate products, or your merchants can set up an account on your site and submit offers directly on your site which you just have to approve before they go live. The Daily Deal Builder software is a pleasure to run and it is built so that the non-technical person can successfully run their site, input offers, and manage their deal site with ease. It is also the most flexible solution as we give full back-end / cpanel access for those who may be a bit more technical. We also have a superb development team and will provide free quotes for site specific upgrades or Android, Apple, Blackberry mobile applications.

Our platform is used by clients around the globe in over 30 countries and proven to work with real success. Daily Deal Builder provides enterprise features without breaking the bank.

It is very easy to run an offer. Just input the information, upload pics or a or video, choose start date/time and end date/time and after the offer goes live, the email notification will automatically go out to the appropriate list of subscribers. DDB is really helpful for you to build segmented lists.

What’s included in the package?

- The Daily Deal Builder software
- Our traffic software called HC Traffic pro which helps you easily syndicate content across the web in an automated fashion
- Our on-going training program that teaches you exactly how to launch and grow your daily deal site

With your investment in Daily Deal Builder, you also receive 40 hours of a virtual assistant included to help you with your off-page SEO, lead generation, and overall traffic generation strategy as well as other delegated tasks. We are confident that you will not find a better training program designed specifically to help you launch and grow a successful daily deal website. We also teach you how to broker deals between daily deal sites (there are thousands out there) and merchants.

Brokering a large national deal can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars and if you are the broker who made it happen, you could generate the largest commission checks that you have ever made.

Do you help me drive traffic?

Heck yeah we help you drive traffic. Our training goes in depth into SEO, Social Media marketing, SEM, guerrilla marketing, paid traffic, and more. On top of our training in which we provide action oriented steps to take, we also provide our traffic software as mentioned above and your own virtual assistant to help you get out of the gate. We have set up everything to make it as easy as possible for you to get off the ground running. What’s cool about DDB Sites is that typically conversion rates are higher as compared to a ‘regular’ type of website.

How do I lock in deals?

We provide example contracts that you can use to lock in deals. Just update company name and how much commission you are going to get. Along with these contracts we show you the most common objections you will hear and how to overcome those objections. We give you swipe emails to use to email potential merchants, and once you are able to get off the ground successfully, locking in deals becomes much easier and many times businesses will reach directly out to you.

Why are you guys so much more inexpensive than your competitors?

We are holding a special. It won’t last long. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to see how great working with us can be and usually once a client starts using Daily Deal Builder they don’t stop using it. Your business is your business and we don’t take a percentage of your revenues. It could not be any easier to launch and grow a deal / coupon site.

How long is this promotion lasting?

It is currently scheduled to go through April. We retain the right to cut the promotion off early if we need to. We always want to ensure our support team is not too overwhelmed and able to provide the best possible support that you will find.

Do I need a registered business?

Not technically. We definitely recommend it though. We have a really cool training with our Accountant who can help you out if you need to set up a proper business structure or get your accounting in order.

Can I do this part time?

You most definitely can. We have quite a few successful clients who are doing this part time in their geographic regions. On the flip side, you can turn this into 6,7,8 figure business if that is what your heart is set on. We have clients with full sales teams working for them. The potential to grow is built in for you, but you can also do this part time and work another job if you wanted.

How long will it take me to get off the ground?

Totally depends. Once you figure out which domain name you would like to use, you submit it to us and we typically have your site built in under 24 hours. From here you need to choose your theme colors, upload your logos and background image, update your About us page, and input your merchant ID and/or PayPal credentials. Some clients order DDB and run an offer the very next day. Other folks have taken as long as 30 days and beyond to get their site launched. Follow our lead, take decisive action, and my recommendation is to run your first offer within 3 weeks from ordering.

How could I compete against the likes of Groupon and Living Social?

Don’t compete against them. Groupon is facing investor pressure, management troubles, and merchant woes. Use this to your advantage. You do not have a hundred million person userbase. Use this to your advantage. The risk is much lower for a merchant to run a deal with you as opposed to Groupon. Be flexible with them and make it so that your goal is to ensure these folks run a deal with you once a month or once a quarter.

Will deals and coupons even be around for much longer?

People have always and will always love getting a great deal. Businesses have always and will always offer some sort of deals, coupons, or promotions to acquire new customers. There will always be an opportunity to act as a middle man and help customers and businesses get what they want. It’s not going anywhere.

What other costs could I expect?

We recommend to get hooked up with a 3rd party email delivery service to experience the best possible email delivery rates. Amazon SES is incredible cost-effective. You will still be building your userbase and database inside your site, but emails will just be delivered via the 3rd party. You could also expect merchant transaction fees which range from 1.99%-2.9%. Finally, once you bring your business in the black, it could be wise to run some paid traffic to your website to help continue growth.

Where can I learn more?

http://dailydealbuilder.com/april

Let us know if you have any other questions,

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne

Grow Your Audience By Using Contests and Crowdsourcing

admin — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:15:11 +0000

If you are anything like me, you’ve noticed a pattern that’s emerged on your Facebook newsfeed. The posts that I am referring to all start with something like;

“Vote for me to win…”
“Vote for my band to win a slot to play Bonnaroo,”
“Vote for my baby because he / she is the cutest thing ever.”
”Vote for my dog, cat, animal, etc…”.

Companies holding contests and utilizing the social media “crowd” is nothing new, but more and more companies are realizing the far stretching benefits of running a crowd-sourced contest.

The idea is to get people to try and win something from your company by getting their friends and contacts to vote for them.

Doritos has completely dominated this space in the previous years with their Crash the SuperbowlFacebook competition. This year was particularly cool for me to see because an old high school friend of mine, Ben Callner, won the competition with his “Goat 4 Sale” video which aired in the most recent Superbowl. Needless to say, for the entire voting period, my news feed was constantly filled with my buddies all voting for Ben and spreading the word for Doritos.

What this contest has done for Doritos is difficult for me to gauge without access to Doritos analytics, but the ramifications can be seen directly on my own Facebook news feed. For starters, an increase in brand awareness and loyalty, user generated recommendations, and social engagement. Not to mention that each time I watched Ben’s commercial I found myself craving some Doritos… The bottom line, however, is that Doritos sold more chips because of the campaign.

If you can incentivize your target market to compete to win something from your company by reaching out to their own personal networks it is an advertising win.

The formula is not very complex:

Use contest software or develop your contest internally. The easiest and most obvious route is to hold the contest directly on Facebook. With a user base exceeding 1 Billion people, you can’t go wrong hosting the contest with them.
Figure out a prize or set of incentives that really entices your target market.
Choose a contest type that benefits your company (best picture using product, video, commercial, testimonial, short story, most votes).
Set contest rules, parameters, terms, and conditions.
Promote the heck out of your contest and make it dead simple for your users to promote the contest.

What unique contests have you seen running across your news feed lately?

Anyone craving Doritos?

Make moves today,
Marc D. Horne
DailyDealBuilder.com – Start a daily deal site with our enterprise level deal software that won’t break your bank.
support@hcdesk.com
800-794-7192

I originally published this article on Daily Deal Media.