A lot of consumers, especially in the Chicago area, have a new daily routine. It’s going online and checking out the local group deals and discounts for the best offers on restaurants, spas and entertainment. In many instances, social plans are sparked by the now familiar phrase, “Let’s go there: I have a coupon.”
For a lot of small businesses, daily deals offer the promise of new customers. Yet what happens more often than they’d like is these new customers don’t return, regardless of having received exemplary service. Or worse, the consumer’s purchase doesn’t make up for the cost of the marketing campaign.
While the concept of daily deals maximized through social-media awareness is brilliant, its execution is flawed. One of the biggest obstacles daily deals create for small business owners in and around Chicago is an inability to engage new customers and foster longer term customer relationships. Without access and permission to contact the customer, there’s very little opportunity to follow up and continue the dialog unless you rethink the way the campaigns are run.
Here are five ways small business owners can make daily deals work in their favor while continuing to grow their customer base.
Reach out to existing customers. If you’re regularly engaging with your customers using Facebook or email marketing, create a deal that’s delivered in one of these mediums to thank them for their loyalty and entice them to return to your business.
Encourage sharing
In your email or Facebook campaign, offer greater rewards to those existing customers who bring in new customers via one of your daily deals.
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Customize the offers
Since you’re already engaging your customers regularly, you have the ability to segment your lists based on interests, previous purchases and email open rates. Based on this information, you can identify the customers most likely to respond to a certain offer. By creating different deals tied to specific customer interests, you grow closer to your audience, boost response rates and improve the likelihood of them sharing your offer with their friends.
Create exclusive deals for new customers
Create compelling offers for new customers and build in an incentive for them to return to your business and share the offer.
Follow up
For existing customers that you’re regularly engaging, you have the ability to reconnect with them via email or Facebook to gauge their responses to your latest deal. For new customers that come in through a daily deal, ask permission to contact them. In both of these scenarios, you’re earning the right to continue the dialog for feedback, improvement of your deals and building closer connections to your customers.
Steve is Constant Contact’s small business expert in Illinois and Wisconsin. A knowledgeable marketing expert with 30 years of experience, Steve has helped thousands of small businesses, associations, and nonprofits develop and implement effective email marketing, social media and online survey strategies. A popular speaker and educator, Steve gives small businesses and nonprofits the tools, techniques, and strategies they need to grow and expand their business and to maximize the power of relationship marketing. Steve’s experience in small business ownership, business development, sales, and fundraising help associations, small businesses and nonprofits achieve success.
