Groupon has been getting a little beat up in the media lately. I think it is because some businesses look at Groupon and Living Social as a marketing savior for their business instead of looking at it as a serious marketing campaign. As the saying goes, junk in is junk out. A successful marketing campaign needs to be planned and services like Groupon are not any different.
Many businesses that signed up for Groupon may have been ill prepared for the huge surge in volume and thus did not properly prepare their support staff for the increase. In addition, the business may not have had a pricing strategy or did not develop a strategy to increase the stickiness of potential customers beyond a discounted price. If these two important items were missing, the Groupon marketing campaign likely failed. Also, the service quality of the business likely suffered due to the lack of preparation resulting in poor customer service to both new and old customers.
Another complaint I have heard regarding Groupon-like services is that only price shoppers participate and thus do not return for regular priced services. I disagree. For instance, I personally have not taken part in many of the Groupon promotions but saved the email because I knew it would be something that I would be interested in doing in the future. I have actually become a full price paying customer due to the awareness of the business that I would not have had if it weren't for Groupon. In addition, there are lots of things that you can do to entice a customer to not only sign up for the Groupon but other ancillary services. You just need to be creative and plan your Groupon campaign accordingly and your business will come out a winner.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kimberly_Loftis
