SME
There have been some very interesting studies conducted recently into the world of the ‘Daily Deal’ and coupon redemption. Perhaps one of the more interesting of these was conducted by Rice University in September of last year and again in June of this year.
But.... if you've been tempted, have a look at something we cooked up, a daily deal calcutator
Their research findings are a fantastic guide to any business tempted by the lure of a daily deal. Whilst many of the business running these deals are very satisfied with the outcome, many are not. There are some parts of this fairly intricate equation that businesses can influence and some are completely out of their control.
There are so many elements involved in these Daily Deal promotions that it’s really very difficult to isolate and pinpoint one or two key factors. In their September research, Rice University maintained that the two key drivers to success or failure of a Daily Deal were Employee Satisfaction and the coupons effectiveness in attracting new customers.
Employee Satisfaction is a massively important element. These promotions will (should) increase the workload of your staff or they may face extra hours. If there little in the way of recompense for the extra work, then it’s going to be an uphill struggle to succeed.
Another element that makes these promotions work is the number of new customers that return to an establishment and spend at full rates and your staff have a vital role in...
In an effort to try and bring some reality as opposed to hype Daily Deals, we've put together an interactive spreadsheet sheet to try and help you get to the bottom of the numbers.
There are so many variables it can really be a bit of a nightmare. But hopefully below will at least give you an indication of how a potential promotion might do.
There are a few items that you can fill in with certain levels of confidence and others that are very much picked out of the ether. One those, it’s best to try and err on the side of caution.
Face value is as it says; the normal price of the goods or services you are going to offer.
Voucher value is the promotional price. Discount is worked out automatically.
What percent will be new customers
What would, on average, be the spend of a regular customer
What are the costs of the goods sold (specifically the voucher good)
Number of vouchers sold and the percent redeemed
Number redeemed – we’ll default that at 15% not redeemed
“Sales above voucher” is trying to estimate the number of people that will buy more that simply what’s on offer. Change the % there
The percent of new customers that will come back again
The Daily Deal site cut
The cost proportion of the deal. From the face value, what’s the cost portion as a percent
Fill in these and see what you get at first pass. Then you can move some of the subjective elements...
I read with interest that yet more of the print industry is moving into to coupon/loyalty/butter-voucher arena. There has been huge interest in the web side of this business and recently highlighted when Groupon turned down a €6bln takeover bid from Google.
Google, spurned, but not completely defeated, has now decided that it will go it alone based on its current advertising technology.
Outside the ‘web discount’ systems Associated Newspapers are launching a loyalty discount scheme for the Mail On Sunday. It’s based on readers purchasing loyalty. In the UK if readers subscribe to the Saturday Mail and Sunday Mail on Sunday together they get redeemable vouchers for a variety of companies like Tesco and Pizza Express . It, like the Poll Tax, is being “tested” in Scotland first and will roll out to the rest of the dominion at a later stage – once William Wallace has given it his imprimatur presumably.
The paper already has culture and (more importantly) a system in place for subscriptions in England and Scotland so it’s probably easy to dove-tail the loyalty scheme into the current subscription process. There is no mention of Ireland in the reward scheme, but that’s possibly because they don’t have a subscription scheme in place here. On the web coupon home front we have Groupon here, but branded under City Deal.
Again offering discounts on a variety of events/services – but they only kick in when a certain number of people have committed to the deal (“Group” “Coupon” = Groupon). Not to be left behind IN+M are planning “GrabOne.ie” which...
The results of a survey conducted by Truvo for a recently held conference are particularly interesting for SME's. The survey was conducted in three countries - Belgium, Ireland and Portugal. In total they canvassed 1850 small businesses and, as the survey was conducted in May 2009, it's particularly topical. They posed the question:
How do you allocate your marketing & advertising budget:
Truvo have a vested interest in the SME sector. It's where they get most of their revenue. This company, and others like it, have seen a decline in print adverting, advertiser numbers and average advertiser spend in recent years. In Ireland their print revenues fell 9%, their online gained 65% (coming from a low base) and their overall revenues were down by close to 5% in 2008. So, in order to get an insight into the minds of their customers, they conducted this survey.
From the results its looks as if the largest chunk of the SME's current marketing spend goes on the traditional print Directory Advertising. This spend is then followed by small businesses developing their own websites and the combined they take 38% of the total budget. "Online" now consumes 40% of the SME's marketing and advertising budget leaving 60% to the more traditional mediums. Some leaps of faith have to be made here to try and interpret what is actually meant in by the broader categories.
Other Print could be direct mail, leaflets/flyers perhaps. Other media is really too broad, but you would suggest that it...
