One of the primary complaints merchants have about running a daily deal is that they attract deal-hungry customers. And this is in part true; you will attract deal-hungry customers.
Yes, a certain portion of buyers of daily deals will be deal hungry customers. These folks ordered a coupon from a bargain website. It’s rather obvious. On the other hand, deal hungry customers have always existed, and will always exist. There have always been bargain hunters out there. In fact, nearly everyone enjoys receiving more value than they pay for.
One of the first things to realize is that a percentage of folks who buy the deal will not ever even show up and portion of these are the deal hunters who forgot they made this purchase.
On the positive side, running a successful deal promotion can give you increased brand awareness. You get quick cash inflows, increased revenues in slower periods, upsell opportunities, and it is an incredibly cost effective advertising solution.
Running a daily deal can introduce you to new customers, but it is entirely up to you to turn this new customer into a raving fan and not just a “one-time, bargain-hunting customer.
Here are 3 primary tips to remember if and when you decide to run a daily deal promotion:
- Go above and beyond for the daily deal customers. Subconsciously, you or your employees might want to give them “half-assed” service because they only paid half, but the exact opposite is true. Work your tail off to make these folks happy and loyal.
- Provide additional incentives in order to bring the deal customers back into your business. Seems crazy, right? The facts remain, however, that the easiest way to get a customer back into your door is to provide a superb experience and an incentive. If they visit your business twice and have expectations exceeded both times, there is a good chance you have just made a new customer and even more importantly, they will tell their friends what a great experience they had.
- Do not run daily deals too often. When you run a daily deal, one of the goals is to increase brand awareness and social awareness. If you are running a daily deal promotion twice a week, it completely loses its power.
- The powerful thing about running a deal promotion is that it is typically only available for a day or two. The frequency at when it is acceptable for you to run deals is entirely up to you, your business model, and the industry that you are in, but my recommendation is to run a deal between once a month and once a quarter.
Many businesses have been burned by their daily deal promotions, but I believe that much of the blame lays directly on the business itself for not doing their part.
What’s your take on the deal hunters?
Marc D. Horne
Daily Deal Builder
I originally published this Article on Daily Deal Media
