Deals

In this era of extreme couponing and group deals, consumers love to savor a restaurant meal for the price of fast food or get a facial for half off. But are these bargains a good deal for small merchants?Whether they’re distributed through websites such as Groupon or Living Social or mailed a la Valpak, discounts and promotions need to be highly tailored to your business if they are going to turn a profit.“You really have to be careful about how you structure these deals if they are going to boost your bottom line,” said Mary Song, CEO of Yuupon, a website specializing in travel deals. “A small business owner, there are a number of things you have to consider if these deals are going to make sense for your small business. You may want to limit the deal to a certain number of customers, a particular season or time period. You don’t need to offer a deal on a Friday or Saturday night when your restaurant is already full, or a discount on a hotel room at a … [Read more...] about Deal or No Deal: Are Coupons Good for Business?

A customer loyalty card program that works can be the killer app for small businesses. The only problem is the cards themselves, usually paper that is manually stamped to show progress toward earning a reward. They get lost, clutter up pockets and take too much time to find. Now, a small startup in Ann Arbor, Mich., thinks that more durable multi-program plastic cards provide a better solution. Flock Tags, the brainchild of David Lin, the owner of an Ann Arbor cafe, and Adrian Fortino, a graduate at the University of Michigan there, look like everyday credit cards. But their embedded near-field communications (NFC) chips enable them to interact with card readers at participating stores, providing valuable consumer purchasing behavior to retailers that enables them to offer tailored deals to Flock Tag card users. Users can also participate in the program and track their purchases and rewards with free apps for Android phones and iPhones.  "Flock Tag takes purchase data and creates … [Read more...] about Playing Tag: Loyal Customers Flock to Merchants for Deals

Shashi Upadhyay is CEO of Lattice Engines.  Whether or not we like it, Big Data is already influencing our lives as consumers. Amazon's Recommendations, Facebook's personalized banner ads based on our profiles and Google's targeted ads based on our previous searches have all created personalized buying experiences based on predicting our purchasing behavior. However, these are examples of transactional sales. It is estimated that over one third of the U.S. economy, e.g., most of the Business-to-Business sector, is based on relationship sales — such as a business securing a line-of-credit or buying a payroll application. For a long time business leaders have believed that these high touch or relationships-based sales are impossible to predict. Big Data changes that. Companies and individuals are spewing out massive amounts of information about themselves on the Web and in social media. Just as Google found a way to effectively measure advertising for the first time, Big Data … [Read more...] about Why Big Data is a Big Deal for Sales

Companies looking to take advantage of email marketing may want to stop offering deals and promotions. New research has found that people are more likely to open emails from people and brands they know than from companies offering promotions. Overall, 24 percent of Internet users say they will open an email on their smartphones when they know the sender, a new eMarketer report found. The subject line of the email is also an important consideration in whether or not mobile users will open an email. Sixteen percent of respondents say the email subject line made an impact on opening an email. Just 6 percent of respondents say that the email length was a big consideration in opening an email and the same number say they will open an email if they know there is a deal attached to it.  Other factors were out of the control of email marketers. For example, nearly 10 percent of respondents say whether they open an email depends on the device they are reading it on. [Email Marketing: A … [Read more...] about Email Marketing Relationships Trump Deals

Looking for more ways to find and interact with customers? Groupon aims to help with a new feature that lets you offer deals, get reviews and showcase everything your business has to offer — all in one page. Groupon announced this week the launch of Pages, a new merchant tool that lets businesses create their own business pages on the daily deals platform. A combination of local business pages like Google+ Local, review sites like Yelp and social networks like Facebook Pages, the tool gives businesses a new way to connect and engage with potential, new and existing customers. "Pages brings millions of additional businesses to the Groupon marketplace and connects them with our large community of mobile users looking for things to do, see or buy," said Eric Lefkofsky, CEO at Groupon, in a statement. "We're giving these merchants their own space on Groupon and new tools to highlight their business, and bring new customers through their doors." [5 Influential Review Sites That Matter … [Read more...] about Groupon Pages: Deals Meet Social Media for Small Business