While Internet-based coupon marketing mania sweeps the retail industry, some disappointed merchants and skeptical marketing consultants are stoking the flames of dissent.
Merchants with less-than-successful outcomes to their coupon marketing ventures are doing their best to publicize their experiences.
Consultants are warning of discount mania: customers by the droves abandoning quality, convenience, and loyalty as considerations.
Are These Worries Warranted?
As San Francisco Regional Sales Manager for Imagine Daily Deals (Groupon competitor), you might be surprised to hear me say, yes.
However, I’m quick to add that they’re easily addressed.
All it requires is proper planning.
Einstein said, “simplify as much as necessary, but no more.” With coupon marketing services, I suspect many sales agents simplify matters too much: “its a coupon- what else do you need to know?”
If you’re going to run a promotion based on price, then, well, let’s look at numbers: what happens if 300 people take up your offer? What about 3,000? What is your cost to deliver? How many customers need to become repeat customers for you to earn a profit on the venture?
In addition, what conditions should you set on the campaign to ensure you’re protected? Should you set a cap on the number of vouchers? Should you limit your offer to only certain months of the day, days of the week, or hours of the day?
Sadly, most merchants I’ve talked to that ran campaigns with our competitors never went through this kind of analysis. This is not to say that their campaigns weren’t successful- it’s just that proper planning could have saved a few of them a bunch of grief.
What About Coupon Mania?
Marketing consultants are warning that customers will be habituated to wait for coupons before spending their money.
They fear that coupon buyers are somehow different from other consumers.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Humans are creatures of habit. They have their few favorite haunts they frequent year in and year out. They rarely get adventurous with their food selections. There’s comfort in the familiar.
Vouchers give consumers an excuse to break out of their patterns to try something new and unfamiliar.
Once consumers have had a chance to sample most places of interest within their short-distance travel radius, they will settle down to their favorites.
But Will They Return?
It always strikes me as funny when a restaurant owner, for instance, says that once a customer has eaten at his establishment, they rarely return. Of course, we’re talking specifically about customers with vouchers- but, it’s funny nonetheless.
While there are no studies to support the following assertion, I’d venture to say that, even if you had to give out coupons to the same buyers a second time to get them to return, it’d be worth it.
For one, if they didn’t like the experience the first time, they wouldn’t come back again- no matter what. …no loss and no gain for the merchant on the repeat offer.
Second, if you can get buyers to return one more time, then they’re more likely to return in the future, with our without a coupon. Again, this is my own conjecture.
Getting someone to break a habit or establish a new one requires several nudges. Why should it be any different for shopping behaviors?
Disclaimer: The ideas and opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not to be construed to be those of Imagine Daily Deals.
