The Pros and Cons of Using Groupon

Daily deal sites are all the rage in today’s economy. Groupon may appear to be the leader, but many other companies are right in line, offering their own versions:

Groupon
Google Offers
– beta version
Living Social
Woot!
Eversave
BuyWithMe

You can even find a variety of niche deal of the day sites

Wozofoto
Photo Deal of the Day

While deal sites are definitely the rage from the consumer side, what about the business side? Does it make sense for you as a business owner to jump on board and make your own offer?

Before you think of running your own ad, it’s worth a moment or two to put together your plan, and understand what you hope to accomplish first.

The way most deal sites work is they offer a different deal on each day, and promote it in a variety of ways, including the site itself, emails and social sites like Twitter and Facebook. If they are big enough, they know how to get the word out.

When you put together your offer, you must give a discount off your service – typically a 50 to 90 percent off deal. The promotion is only valid if a certain number of people buy into the deal within the set period of time, usually 24 hours. Then the daily deal site will keep 50 percent of the revenues made from the deal.

While there have been many stories circulating online about the value of using a daily deal site for your business, as with any marketing tool you use, you have to understand the nuances of the tool before you make your offer. Sites like Groupon have pros and cons, just like any other marketing tool. You just have to understand how to use it effectively.

Pros

Daily deals attract a lot of customers.
If you make the right offer, it’s not uncommon to gain hundreds of new customers during the 24 hour selling process. The beauty of daily deals sites is the quickness of the decision. A person will view the offer in their preferred manner, and make a buying decision within seconds. If they proceed, with just a couple of clicks the deal has been purchased. While it’s a great way to gain new customers that may have thought about trying you in the past, its also a great way of gaining repeat business from people that haven’t used your services in a while. [Read more…]