What if Products Were Actually Like Their Marketing?

By Christine Fife | Published: October 29, 2010
Slimfast Truth

Image found at HolyTaco.com

What if McDonald’s or Burger King showed a real hamburger from one of their franchises in a commercial? Would you buy it?

What if every Comcast Cable customer service rep really was nice and tried hard to honestly solve your problem? Would you feel better about paying an arm and a leg for cable service?

What if State Farm Car Insurance brokers really did show up instantly? And what else can they do for you? Bring you a sandwich or a hot tub? Would you be more interested in their insurance policies if they really did also match you with hot guys who are sensitive and have a dark side?

There are laws in the US that require companies to be truthful in their advertising, yet so much of advertising certainly doesn’t seem truthful.

Under the Federal Trade Commission Act:

  • Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
  • Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
  • Advertisements cannot be unfair.

What makes an advertisement deceptive?

According to the FTC’s Deception Policy Statement, an ad is deceptive if it contains a statement – or omits information – that:

McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese

Image from JacksonLocal.com

  • Is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances; and
  • Is “material” – that is, important to a consumer’s decision to buy or use the product.

Hmmm. Have you ever bought a hamburger from a fast food restaurant that actually looked anything close to the pictures on their advertisements? If I saw this burger pictured here, which is what they show on the menu at McDonald’s for their Quarter Pounder with cheese, I might want to buy it (side note: I don’t actually like hamburgers, myself, and I don’t eat at any fast food restaurants because it isn’t healthy food.) But this is not what you get when you purchase one of these burgers.

Let’s look at a more realistic image, shall we?

Real image of a Quarter Pounder.

Image from Moonbattery.com of a real quarter-pounder.

This is a real McDonald’s Quarter Pounder purchased at a McDonald’s franchise. Does this look as tasty as the first image? If the product doesn’t look like the advertised image, why is that not breaking any law? And why do consumers seem to be ok with this? People still buy these McDonald’s burgers in droves, yet they all seem to be aware that what they are purchasing won’t look anything like the picture in the ad.

I’d like to throw out a challenge to advertisers. Now if you read my blog often you’ll know that I don’t generally feel that traditional print ads and commercial spots are worth their price anymore. People really have gotten smarter and see through marketing “fluff”–they tune out or just flat out don’t watch or focus on the ads. Perhaps that’s why companies can get away with making claims and showing images for services and products which aren’t really accurate.

So, advertising professionals, what can you do to be more honest if showing your company’s products in advertisements that still make a person interested in the product? I don’t eat Domino’s pizza (I’m gluten free) but I commend them for their switch to honesty in their commercials. Show pictures of food that looks like the real thing. Who wants to eat something that looks plastic-ly perfect anyway?

For some companies, there won’t be an advertising solution. They’ll actually need to improve their products to meet the claims of their commercials. Consumers are getting much to smart and can now tell when you’re slapping lipstick on a pig. If you’ve got a worthy product, be truthful in your advertising. If you’re product isn’t worthy, don’t try and trick people into buying it with glazed over, retouched, airbrushed images of products that don’t accurately reflect what you sell.

In terms of the 5 key elements to marketing communications and audience engagement, this is what it means to Care about your customers’ wants and needs and Care about what you offer.

Posted in Caring, marketing campaigns | Tagged | Leave a comment

New Potential for Deal-of-the-Day Sites

By Christine Fife | Published: October 14, 2010

While working at my favorite co-working space, NextSpace in San Francisco I overheard two people talking about a new deal–of–the–day (DOD) site. If you read my posts in August that discussed deal–of–the–day sites, you know I have strong opinions about the use of these for small business marketing. (Check out the earlier posts: Groupon Nearly Killed My Small Business and Getting the Most from a Deal of the Day offer.) Well, I couldn’t just sit there and eavesdrop, I had to introduce myself and find out what they were talking about.

They both worked for a new company called Adility, which is something like an aggregating service for DODs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if the company has put a lot of time into messaging and has only minimal information about how the programs work on their website. I am in no way working with Adility, so I won’t try to create messaging for them that is clear (which they desperately need) but the idea behind the company has promise so I wanted to share it with you.

Adility’s claim is that it “connect your business with—local customers online, mobile and off-line; and by promoting your gift cards, deals and coupon.” Essentially, for a nominal monthly subscription (there is a free Lite version) a small business can create, promote and manage deals, coupons and gift cards from one location. The benefit to the small business is that they don’t have to go to multiple DOD sites to put out deals for their area via DOD websites and mobile offers and they can easily promote their deals, coupons and gift cards to their social contacts via the same interface. Adility also offers the option for a business to sell their deals to “Adility’s network of 350 local marketing companies with over 7000 sales representatives presenting your prepaid cards and coupons to local consumers through lasting, meaningful personal impressions.”

Adility has developed relationships with DOD and coupon sites allowing Adility customers to submit a deal or coupons to multiple DOD sites at one time while controlling the number of deals to be sold. The DOD sites they currently have relationships with our Coupons.com, DealOn, Deal$ter, Yidio, citybizlist, The Dealmap and myUncleVinny. When creating the deal, the Adility interface allows you to enter the geographical location where the deals can be redeemed.

Unfortunately, Adility’s blog, which is where their only real company and service content resides, makes the same claims that the individual DOD sites have been making that seem to get small businesses into trouble— chiefly that deal-of-the-day offerings are free advertising. Nothing is free. Deals done through DOD sites just do for the cost— instead of paying for advertising up front, the business offering the deal “pays” for the “advertising” in the form of lost income because the deal had to be discounted so much and the percentage per deal sold that is given to the DOD site. Read Groupon Nearly Killed My Small Business to better understand how this works.

For small businesses who understand how to offer deals through DOD sites to their advantage (I urge you to read Getting the Most from a Deal of the Day offer to find out more about how to do that) the idea behind Adility and the deal/coupon aggregation service they are offering seems appealing.

Though I am not personally endorsing Adility, I think they are definitely worth checking out.

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Where Shall We Share?: Locations for Getting Your Messages Out

By Christine Fife | Published: September 24, 2010

Just because it’s there, doesn’t mean you should use it. I’m often asked (most regularly by people I meet at social gatherings who have a startup, but also by potential clients) the locations I would use to put their company’s messages out that will draw in new clients for them. Actually, they usually phrase it more in general terms like, “if a B2B company is going to use social media to promote our business what sites or platforms get the most return?”

If the person asking is someone I’ve just met and I have no knowledge of their industry or what they offer I usually say, “I have no idea.” This tends to make them think I have no knowledge of marketing. But the reality is that no one should have any idea what sites or social media outlets in general will get the most returns until after they’ve done their homework. What brings great results for one company may not bring any results for another, especially if you’re comparing companies based only on the common trait of being B2B businesses. As with any other business decision, you need to consider your company’s industry and goals, at the very least, and then determine what is important to your target audience and where do they talk and/or listen to that market conversation.

For many people, that group asking me these questions, they are expecting to hear a list of websites, communities, publications and/or social networks. More than likely, at least one of each of these different types of outlets will be a conversation location that they could see a good response from if they put their messages out there (or more specifically, if they engage in those locations by both sharing information but also listening and building relationships). But even if a marketing communications professional does already have background knowledge of the company’s industry and a strong understanding of their offerings, giving a list of locations they should participate in without a deeper dive of research would be irresponsible. Why would that be irresponsible? Well, what if that nice person whom you just met at a cocktail party goes off and takes your list of locations as gospel and then they don’t get a good response? They’re likely to then believe that the fault lies with those locations or social media or advertising/marketing in general.

I believe it is much more responsible and generous to say that you can’t give them just a list off the top of your head. Instead, a word of advice that you want to consider what your business goals and objectives are, then really understand your target audience and what they want and need (this is beyond demographics of an audience who generally buy the type of product/service you offer) and then research where those individuals/businesses participate in the market conversation. Consider the industry thought-leaders that are most likely to appeal to them and build a plan to develop relationships with those individuals and consider participating–listening, speaking, caring and sharing–in the locations where those influencers are participating.

There shouldn’t be a quick, easy list as the answer. If there was, more businesses would be more successful than they are and there would be more competition for every business in every industry.

Posted in B2B, Conversation Locations, Conversation Marketing, Participating in the Conversation, Sharing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Deciding What to Say

By Christine Fife | Published: September 16, 2010

Up until recently it was standard practice for a company to develop their messaging–and all their different types of collateral–based mainly on what their product/service is or does and some basic audience demographic info. Today, consumers and business buyers are too smart for that. Studies now show that people don’t really believe what a company says about their own products/services. People are reaching out more and more to friends and family, and even strangers online who choose to write reviews for purchase advice and recommendations. So what can a company do to ensure their consumers’ friends, family and even strangers will help pass on accurate information about their products/services?

First off, listen. Companies will always need to develop messages about what their products/services are or do and their benefits, but if companies spent more time listening to the market conversation and how their audience talks about what they want and need, they would be able to develop messaging that’s inline with the way their audience is hoping to hear about ways to fulfill their wants and needs. This requires that companies think beyond just what their offerings actually do. It requires a much deeper understanding of what people care about and what is important to them.

Most companies broadcast their messages without listening. They don’t listen to the market conversation beforehand and they aren’t listening after their messages are put out to figure out if it’s resonating with their audience. Online technologies have made Listening to the market conversation so easy, it seems ridiculous that companies don’t do it.

So what am I really talking about? You want an example? Ok, how about health insurance. Today I the pleasure of speaking with the VP of Product at Castlight Health, developers of a hosted software tool for businesses to provide employees with personalized views of their medical benefits and the costs associated with medical procedures so they can make informed health care shopping decisions. The ever rising cost of health care is a big topic. As someone who purchases my own health insurance rather than getting it through a full-time employer, I know well how expensive insurance is and the cost of medical services doctors recommend aren’t challenged because consumers of medical services don’t understand that they can shop around.

Castlight Health’s search engine offering allows consumers to search for nearby doctors and, based on their insurance coverage, compare the prices of certain procedures. This means doctors, hospitals and labs will need to revamp their messaging to compete in comparison-shopping wars. Doctors, hospitals and labs won’t be able to rely on consumers coming to them because they were referred by a doctor or the hospital/office is closest to the consumer. They’ll need to offer competitive pricing and develop messaging that illustrates how they’re worth their pricing.

Now to get back to a real example of deciding what to say for a health insurance company. At random, I’ve done a Google Search for Health Insurance. Blue Shield of California was lucky enough to show up at the top of the AdWords, so I’ll pick on them. I clicked through the AdWords ad which said, “Find Affordable CA Health Plans. Free Quote. Easy Online Application.” Nothing wrong with the AdWords ad, really. They realize consumers need to be cost conscious and that they don’t want a complicated application process. You can only do so much with an AdWords ad, right?

After clicking through I am taken the page here. The messaging here is all about what them. It focuses only on their specific plans with no regard for what people need or want. Do I care what plans other people get? Insurance isn’t “affordable” at all, it’s a necessary evil because if you didn’t have it and were sick or injured, you’d probably never be able to cover the expenses. I’d love for my plan to have all the benefits, but “rich benefits” just tells me it’s the most expensive and if I’m not rich, I can’t have those benefits. My favorite bit–I’m being sarcastic–is “Choose Blue Shield. Providing Californians with access to affordable, high-quality health coverage since 1939.” 100% self-serving and self-proclaimed messaging.

So now I’ve opened  new browser tab and gone to Google Realtime Search and put in doctor +test, and a second search on Omgili.com (a forum search engine). Doctors are always recommending tests, right? Sure the office visit is usually covered on all health insurance plans, minus a co-pay fee, perhaps, but tests always fall on the consumer to pay. Most people have a deductible they will need to meet for the year and unless you’re really sick, you’ll end up having to cover the costs of lab work and other tests because you won’t need enough of them to reach your deductible before the year runs out.

Through my search results on Google Realtime and Omgili.com, I’ve quickly learned a lot about what people care about and need when it comes to medical tests. Things people care seem to include understanding test results, interested in having a medical test for something but their doctor won’t give them a referral and whether they should have tests a doctor recommended done. People also seem to question if test results are accurate. Interesting. So can Blue Shield do anything on this landing page for health insurance coverage that speaks more to these people’s wants and needs? Here’s one sample:

Instead of “Choose Blue Shield. Providing Californians with access to affordable, high-quality health coverage since 1939.” How about: “Blue Shield cares about your health. Working to give Californians the health coverage they need with the help to understand their health care options they want, since 1939.”*

*Note: I have no knowledge of Blue Shield’s plans so it’s possible this message wouldn’t work for them–if they don’t actually do anything to help people understand their health care options than they’re clearly not listening to what people need and want.

Posted in Caring, listening, Speaking | Tagged | Leave a comment

You Need to Get Their Attention

By Christine Fife | Published: September 9, 2010

If you read my blog often you may have noticed that I rarely talk about traditional advertising as a great way to market your company or business. There is just so much noise out in the on and offline world now that few people even see things like billboards or print ads, and I certainly don’t watch commercials. These things just don’t grab my attention.

That’s the real issue today for marketing professionals–getting your audiences attention. Even with new communications approaches, getting your target audience to not only notice you, but to stay interested long enough to be engaged and then look at what you have to offer is tough. Companies are looking for the next best thing to wow their audience and one of those things is augmented reality. I had the pleasure of visiting the San Francisco office of one of the leaders in augmented reality software solutions earlier this week, Metaio.

The Wikipedia definition of augmented reality is “a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery.” But this description falls flat of conveying he business use possibilities for augmented reality.

Metaio offers a suite of products called Unifeye that allow companies to rethink advertising, promotional and user interaction ideas, not to mention potential service applications. There is definitely an eye-catching wow factor that initially grabs audience attention and with a great idea behind augmented reality you can definitely engage your audience and keep them coming back for more.

One of the uses I found incredible was done by JCPenny. It’s a virtual dressing room that allows site visitors to see how they might look in clothes for purchase online. This was featured on Seventeen.com.

Or how about this mobile application that allows someone to visualize new furniture in their home? Very cool.

And one last example. An in-store kiosk allowing the customer to view  what a Lego set will look like once it’s built! Christmas shopping takes on a whole new concept!

The applications for this type of technology in both business product aspects and marketing are practically endless. As a consumer myself, I’d like to see more companies offer these types of interactive use cases that allow me to make a more informed decision on what I’m purchasing. There is also a terrific entertainment factor.

For these types of marketing uses the most important follow up a company can do is to ensure they have a great system for allowing consumers to talk back to them. These types of applications provide a great opportunity for companies to invite more consumer feedback, but they have to be ready to listen and respond if necessary.

Posted in Audience Engagement | Tagged , | Leave a comment

SF Meet-up 9/13: Market Yourself to Increase Career Opportunities

By Christine Fife | Published: September 9, 2010

Last month I wrote a post titled Build An Online Profile for Your Career in which I shared a slide presentation on the subject. Now I’d like to invite you (anyone reading this in the San Francisco Bay Area) to attend a meet-up group on how to market yourself to increase your career opportunities. The event is free, but registration is required as space is limited.

Event Details

Marketing Yourself: Build an Online Profile to Increase Career Opportunities
Monday, September 13, 2010 from 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM (PT)
Join us for coffee and a discussion on how to Market Yourself

  • My resume looks great, but I’m not getting called for interviews.
  • I want to move forward in my career, but I’m always getting passed over for promotions.
  • I’m a consultant/contractor and I’m just not getting enough new clients.
  • I’m changing careers and having trouble breaking into my new field.

If you can relate to any of these statements, come learn how building an online profile can help boost your career.

This informal meeting will include some expert advice from Marketing Conversationalist Consultant Christine Fife, including:

  • Defining an Online Profile
    • Where online profiles exist.
    • Why you should care about having an online profile.
  • How an Online Profile Can Benefit Your Career
    • What to avoid so your profile doesn’t harm your career.
  • Building Your Online Profile
    • Personal and professional goals help define your optimal online profile.

This Marketing Yourself morning conversation will be hosted by BellaPelle Skin Studio.

Posted in Conversation Locations, Conversation Tools, Participating in the Conversation, Self Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Engaging to Sell: Enterprise Sales People Go Social

By Christine Fife | Published: September 3, 2010

Since social networks emerged, sales people have been trying to figure out how to use them to increase their sales and shorten sales cycles. Many of these people have been discouraged because they haven’t found value in using LinkedIn or Facebook for networking that actually aids in their sales processes. Now there’s a new network tool specifically designed for the enterprise sales people that allows users to draw from their network of social capital and collaborate with others giving them true value (i.e. increased sales opportunities and knowledge sharing.)

So, full disclosure on this post, the new collaborative networking tool I’m talking about is RGlobe and I am engaged with RGlobe as a consultant on their marketing communications. But I would still endorse the product concept even if I wasn’t working with them as they’ve hit on something really terrific for sales professionals.

Though they haven’t officially launched, RGlobe is working with their first enterprise customers and several analysts are extremely excited about the product. (Check out this upcoming event on October 7 with Forrester Analyst Tim Harmon in which the RGlobe CEO will be participating: Emerging Technology Trends for Channel Sales and Partner Marketing.)

RGlobe is the first company to offer enterprises a private collaborative selling network that allows their sales professionals in-house to network and collaborate on deals with their partner companies. Partner leveraging has long been an issue with channel partnership models because of inefficient processes and security risks in sharing information across partner sales teams. RGlobe addresses these issues with their private collaborative selling network allowing users to connect and communicate across their partnerships for real-time collaboration.

An enterprise builds their private collaborative RGlobe network and invites their partners to join. That enterprise then  instantly increases its social capital by expanding its prospecting funnel to include all their partners who they now have connectivity with through the RGlobe Network.  All of the sales and biz dev professionals within the enterprise company are now aligned by account coverage and competency with all of their counterparts at each partner. But the prospecting funnel expansion is mutually exclusive. The partner companies benefit from being on the enterprise’s RGlobe Collaborative Selling Network because they are able to connect, communicate and collaborate with the enterprise’s internal social capital pool, but they have no access to any of the enterprises other partners on the Network. Only the enterprise’s sales teams are able to connect with others across all their partners within the RGlobe Network, thus increasing the number of individuals they can now connect and communicate with considerably.

RGlobe utilizes many of the common social networking features to allow users across partnerships to collaborate efficiently and effectively. For sales professionals, being able to connect with their partners sales pros who sell into the same companies and industries offers terrific potential for them to share information with each other that will help them close deals. The RGlobe solution also encourages and facilitates the assisting of other users with User Incentive Recognition and a Trust and Value Rating System. It’s very much a Whuffie Factor enabler! And if you read my blog often you know I’m a big believer of the Whuffie Factor concepts.

Check out RGlobe for yourself. RGlobe will also be in San Francisco during Oracle Open World later this month–they’re taking meetings with companies interested in viewing RGlobe.

Posted in B2B, Building Relationships, Social Media Tools | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Who Influences Your Marketing

By Christine Fife | Published: August 30, 2010

As a marketing professional, I don’t look to companies to tell me what’s hot, trendy, working or not working in marketing. I believe it’s best to research top thought-leaders rather than looking to a company who will have a self-interest slant on their information. And I don’t just take everything they say as gospel. These individuals may have a lot of experience, but they aren’t working on your business or product. You need to apply ideas from these individuals to your own company’s situation.

If you’re looking for some great thought-leaders in marketing and social media check out this list below. Read their blog and the comments others make. Follow them on Twitter and attend meetups and conferences where they’ll be speaking. Many of them have terrific books available. For more details on these individuals and some others, check out the list on my personal website.

For quick and easy adding of these people to your “follow” lists, check out my Google RSS folder for Influencers and two lists from Twitter: Marketing Influencers and for a great list of many more individuals who I follow and participate with in the greater Marketing Conversation check out the marketing-conversation list.

Andrew Lark http://andylark.blogs.com/andylark/
Andy Beal http://www.marketingpilgrim.com
Andy Sernovitz  http://www.damniwish.com
Augie Ray   http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray
Jacob Morgan   http://www.jmorganmarketing.com
JD Lasica   http://www.socialmedia.biz
Mitch Joel  http://www.twistimage.com/
Blake Cahill   http://blog.visibletechnologies.com
Brian Solis   http://www.briansolis.com
Chris Brogan     http://www.chrisbrogan.com
David Meerman Scott    http://www.webinknow.com/
Jeremiah Owyang  http://www.web-strategist.com/blog
John Jantsch    http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog
Lee Odden     http://www.toprankblog.com
Seth Godin     http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/
Shiv Singh     http://www.goingsocialnow.com/
Tara Hunt      http://www.horsepigcow.com
Valeria Maltoni     http://www.conversationagent.com/

Posted in Building Relationships, Influencers, Marketing's Market Conversation | Tagged | Leave a comment

Are Companies Just Lazy with Customer Engagement?

By Christine Fife | Published: August 26, 2010

Last evening I had a wonderful time at my first Linchpin meetup. First off, it was being held at the new NextSpace (co-working space) location in San Francisco. In fact, I saw the meetup on the NextSpace calendar because I was actually looking into becoming a NextSpace member. I’m currently reading Seth Godin’s Linchpin (on my Kindle, of course), so it was a great opportunity to snuggle two puppies with one hug.I highly recommend all three–Seth’s book, the Linchpin Meetup and NextSpace.

I met some terrific people at the meetup and enjoyed the discussions which focused on reviewing some of Seth Godin’s blog posts. I particularly enjoyed talking with others about his post What’s the Point (July 2010). After the discussion I started thinking back to a blog post by Forrester’s Augie Ray’s from a couple of days ago, Do You Want to Succeed in Social Media or Social Media Marketing.

All of this got me thinking more about the effort that companies aren’t putting into customer engagement. In Linchpin, Godin says, “Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back.” He paints these people as “victims” of a societal education that teaches people to fit in: “For hundreds of years, the population has been seduced, scammed and brainwashed into fitting in, following instructions and exchanging a day’s work for a day’s pay.”

I think very highly of Seth’s ideas and am a fan of his blog and books. In Linchpin he reaches out to inspire people to understand that they have a brilliance and a genius to be more and break out of the norm by contributing value and creating something precious. I love that idea and hope people take heed, but I ponder whether he’s right about society’s guilt. Societal norms certainly have a major impact on how people act and behave in their careers, but I think it has much more to do with the high value our society seems to place on laziness.

Too often workers in every industry look to do the least amount possible to still receive their paycheck and move on in their career toward desired goals. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with efficiency or looking to accomplish a goal by using fewer resources, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Our society, particularly in America, seems to think freedom means free and doing as little as possible is good. But that’s not very rewarding. Freedom as a right doesn’t mean you deserve to get things for free. Doing as little as possible to get by doesn’t inspire others and rarely results in amazing innovation. I say it’s time that our society reconsiders the value proposition on putting in time and effort to accomplish something. Remember the saying, “an honest day’s work?”

Now I’ll turn my attention on these ideas stated above in regards to businesses. So many companies are jumping on a social media bandwagon of some kind trying to get at consumers in a new way, but they look at hiring interns and consider social media a free activity. Many wonder why their social media efforts are not yielding a high return on new customers. Do these businesses really think they’ll get something for nothing?

Social media as a platform (or many new types of platforms depending on your view of social media) is a major innovation in communication and companies should be taking advantage of the fact that this new medium gives them a greater opportunity to engage with their customers. To Listen, Speak, Care, Share and Build Relationships with their customers and other stakeholders. Instead, companies are being lazy. They’re using social media as a new means of talking “at” people and expecting people to just accept that. Just because they put up a Facebook Fan Page doesn’t mean their interacting with customers. Think of how often you go to a store or a restaurant and you’re treated badly or ignored or have a bad experience trying to find items, return purchases, understand a glitch in your bill. How long have you sat on hold waiting to talk to a customer service representative only to be rerouted to another person who also couldn’t help fix your situation and eventually you’ve spent 10 hours, hundreds of dollars and now don’t even want the service you are locked into for a year on contract?

I hope that this blog post helps inspire companies to understand that putting a bit of time, money, effort and other resources into using social media, and consequently, improving their customer service, store offerings, products/services and support lines so that people had a reason and desire to “friend” them on Facebook or tag new products and recommend their services. Offer your customers something novel–offer them an energized commitment to caring about their needs and wants and providing them with the best possible services and products. Then put up your fan page and Twitter stream as a means of sharing information with them, but also as an invitation to engage with your company, to provide feedback and build trust so that they want to remain your customer and recommend you to others.

Posted in Audience Engagement, Building Relationships, Caring, listening, Sharing, Speaking | Tagged | Leave a comment

Getting the Most from a Deal of the Day offer

By Christine Fife | Published: August 23, 2010

Last week I cautioned businesses against jumping into deal-of-the-day promotions until they really understand the full cost involved and what the impact on there business would be. (See Groupon Nearly Killed My Business.) Deal-of-the-day offers through sites like Groupon, Homerun, DealOn and many other emerging players can be a cost-effective way of drawing in new customers, but you need to be thoughtful and consider the total cost of acquisition when deciding what kind of offer to do. (Again, check out last week’s post: Groupon Nearly Killed My Business.)

Running a Smart Deal-of-the-Day

  1. Define your goal
    What are you trying to get out of running a deal-of-the-day? Hint: “I want to increase my sales,” or “I want to book more service appointments,” are not the right answers. Of course you want to do those things—you’re in business to do business! The answer you need here is more specific. “I need to boost appointment bookings on Tuesdays,” or “My business is launching our own product-line in addition to our services and we want to let people know.”
  2. Understand the DOD Site Contract
    These programs don’t have an upfront cost, but that doesn’t mean they’re free! The price tag for deal-of-the-day programs is more about the cost of acquisition. Think of it this way, you aren’t spending money to advertise upfront but you are selling your products or services at a greatly reduced price—much more than just the discount percentage of the deal.The DOD site takes a commission percentage on each deal sold. Some DOD sites will negotiate the commission amount. They need deals to offer to their members, so don’t just agree to a 50-50% split—negotiate.
  3. Check for Additional Fees
    The DOD sites often charge a percentage per deal sold as a credit card processing fee. This is often 2 or 3% of each deal sold. If this is the case, your revenue per deal is now less the commission paid to the DOD site, as well as less the processing fee.
  4. Don’t Loose Money on the Deal
    Be sure to understand your profit margins on products and services so that it doesn’t cost you money to provide the service or give away your product. If you’re a service provider who works with contractors to provide the services, such as hair stylists or massage therapists, how much do you have to pay them to perform the service? Remember, you may already be taking in less than 50% per service—if you have to pay a contractor up to 50% of the standard price, you’ve now lost money on each deal sold.
  5. Don’t Put Yourself Out of Business
    Keep in mind that you may sell a lot of deals! If that happens, can you provide the service or fulfill the orders to meet the customer demand? If you sell 1000 massages deals, can your business actually provide that many? Can you provide that many AND keep up with your current customer demands? How angry will current customers and/or deal customers be if they can’t get an appointment for 6 months because you’re now booked (and booked with appointments that are not raising any revenue for you)?
  6. Be Prepared to Create Repeat Customers
    Many businesses are willing to take a small loss per deal sold on this new form of marketing because their goal is to bring in new customers who will then come in often to spend money and pay full-pricing. First, be sure you have a client/customer retention program in place. Don’t just bring these new people in and hope they’ll return. They need to be enticed to come back and spend more!Second, don’t put all your hope into the repeat customer basket! Many people that will buy your deal-of-the-day just want a deal for a one-time service or product. In addition, your current customers may also see the deal and purchase it, leaving you providing a regular customer the same service or product at a big discount. If the person would have paid full-price because they were already a customer, you’ve now lost money.

DOD advertising is a valid form of marketing that can help businesses attract new customers and increase sales, but only if you’re smart about using DOD sites. Be sure you think everything through and that you understand what you’re getting into. You might want to think about consulting a marketing or business professional before you jump in.

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