Steps to running a successful social media deal
In just one year, there are dozens if not hundreds of great social buying sites that offer daily deals or short term offers that allows your business to market itself to a large audience and drive significant traffic, increase local business awareness and convert deal users into repeat buyers.
In the past year I have worked with five business owners and redeemed dozens of offers companies such as Groupon.com, LivingSocial.com, Mampedia.com and many more. As a business owner, this is a fabulous opportunity, but it is important to take the appropriate steps to make your deal a success and turn the deal redeemers into happy repeat customers.
The Steps
Choose a great deal. If you don’t have a great offer, who’s going to want to buy it. Some ideas for coming up with a great offer are gather publications such as newspapers, emails, periodicals, deals etc of your competitors – what catches your eye. Many of these companies assign you a sales rep when you contact them. Utilize your sells rep and ask them to pull successful deals in your area as well as other markets. See which deals worked and which deals tanked and why. Most people respond to offers of 50% + off or more. And remember, your goal is to get customers in the front door, impress them and keep them coming back.
Check and double check – make your deal straightforward. Is your offer for new customers only, for a particular service or with a specific employee? Make sure to have this information as well as a manageable end date, a limit to the number of deals your customer can purchase and so forth.
If your new at advertising – work with your reps to come up with exceptions or see what your competitors are doing in your industry. Its extremely important for a deal to not have too many restrictions or load your deal with hidden fees. You don’t want for your customers to be confused, upset or not be able to use their offers when they arrive at the business. As a business this is your opportunity to shine and create the best possible experience for the customer so they repeat business.
Update your website. In some markets, deals go out to 100,000+ people. Several of these people who are unaware of your business, check it out on the internet and see if it’s a place they would like to use. If you can’t update it, make sure your companies contact information, location and map are easy to find. It amazes me how many offers I click through and theres no address on the website and I have to google it. Take some time to check your website for errors, typos, the information is current and that the prices are correct if they’re listed online.
Advertise your deal. If your business advertises on social media sites such as Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, email, your website, community boards, etc Advertise that that your business is offering a deal this month and on which social media site.
Cap the volume on the deal. This is most important with service providers, stores, services, etc. If you are an individual offering a service in a large city, it is important to cap the number of offers that you can reasonably handle. The goal is to create a positive experience and people do have some flexibility with when they can redeem the offer, but most would like to schedule out 1 week, a max at 2 weeks. To give you a basic guideline, most offers have their clients redeeming 50% of the deals between the first and last month of the offer, 10 – 20% not at all and the rest of the people in the months in between. So, think about the percentage of sales you can reasonably accommodate on top of your current clients and go from there.
Customer service, customer service & did I say customer service. Many of these social media deals incur a huge surge of business when the deal first hits. People call businesses to find out more and it is extremely important that your employees are ready to handle this business.
Uninformed employees = unhappy customers = lost revenue
As a business owner, it is your responsibility to work with your employees and inform them how your offer works, educate them about customer service practices with potential clients and what strategies to use to keep them coming back.
Make sure that you have the correct amount of staff on hand.
Deals = an increase in business, are you ready for this?
I think the best way of illustrating this is with an example. A new salon opened blocks from my houses and then a month later a deal came – I snatched it up, excited to try a new place just around the corner. I purchased a manicure & pedicure for a friend and myself so we could have a girl’s day out. We scheduled an appointment three weeks in advance and called to confirm the day before. When we showed up for our appointment, we found out there was only one employee scheduled to work that morning – but there where appointments for two of us. Then 30 minutes later, 2 more people arrived to do the exact same thing. To make s long story short, we left part of the way through the pedicure, and got our money back from the company that issued the deal and so did the people after us. We called the company, we were told that we where not the first people to call about this business. After all of that, I would never go back, nor would I recommend it to anyone. As a business, its less expensive and easier to keep a current customer happy and coming back, then continuing to market and attract new businesses.
Don’t downsize your offer when customers get there. This is a chance to entice your customers with your products, services, an experience, etc. As a business, you need to put your best foot forward to keep those people to come back, and paying full price. This is illustrated best from this example – I purchased a facial that came with a paraffin dip for my hands and a neck rub. I was super excited to go as this spa got rave reviews from several of my friends. In addition, the salon owner was also a makeup artist who I was interested in hiring for an upcoming photo shoot. The owner was extremely pleasant, but as we proceeded through the services, she continued to tell me what they would do during a full price facial, a full priced paraffin dip and how a full neck rub was 20 minutes, not 5. I came out of the appointment upset that I only got the bargain priced facial and I ended up using a different makeup artist for our photo shoot. So remember to do your best to make all of your customers happy, not just your full price paying customers.
Budget, budget, budget! As a business owner, it’s important to be prepared for the expense of your deal / offer. Businesses such as Groupon, Living Social, Mamapedia are pitched to businesses owners as free advertising (not having to pay a fee for advertising up front).
First, the social media companies have back-end expenses such as taking between 20 – 50% of the deal. The remainder of the money is cut in the form of a check to your business within 60 days.
It is important to think of this money as a loan with monthly payments. Yes, you receive all the money in one lump sum, but you need to pay the offer out over a course of months. It’s extremely important not to spend it all at once and budget out the cost to pay for your product, expenses, employees, etc. Users have between 3 – 12 months to redeem their certificates / offers. You don’t want to run in the red in just a few months.
The positive is, with all of these deals are that between 10 – 20% of the purchasers forget to redeem their coupon before the offer expires. There will be a percentage of the redeemers who up sell, add services or product or spend more than the offer when they get to your business.
You don’t just have to use one company to offer your deal. As with advertising, you need to think about where is the best place to advertise your business. Who is your market and is your offer appropriate for your market. Not one company will work with everyone. Since the success of Groupon, several competitor companies sprung up overnight with similar daily deals focusing on various markets – families, people who like clothing, restaurants, singles, etc. In my upcoming post, there will be more information about all of the companies that I am familiar with. You can utilize this to inexpensively test and arch new markets to find out where your business and which offers work best. I greatly recommend that you space your offer out to only 1 time a month per advertising media. This way you can streamline your offers as you go and focus in the markets your business will be successful.
Our next article will be about some of the different daily deal websites and an idea of which types of companies and deals work best on them. In the mean time, I love comments and any additional information that you have.
Laura Baker is a business strategy specialist for LMG Consulting. Laura is a marketing guru who works on streamlining business processes & improving sales to make organizations more profitable. Laura is based out of Southern California and has worked with major fortune 500 companies, boutique firms, non-profit organizations and individuals. For additional information, questions, visit us at www.LasaraMgmtGroup.com or email Laura at Laura@LasaraMgmtGroup.com.
