How to Advertise on Groupon — The Ultimate Guide

Have you ever been wondering how to market on Groupon? If so, then you’re in the right location. Advertising a deal on Groupon allows small businesses the chance to associate with Groupon’s 53 million+ unique users. This sort of vulnerability can be match changing for a small organization, especially one that’s having a difficult time expanding their client base and attaining new customers.

And while it is quite possible to have a bad experience advertisements on Groupon, there is also a way to utilize the site in order to increase brand recognition, drive repeat clients, and make money. It is dependent on you, the kind of business you own, and the plan you put into position.

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What’s Groupon?

Groupon is a daily bargain site where companies can market their discounted products and services to prospective clients. The deals generally range from 50-70percent off along with a great number of goods and services are offered.

How Does Groupon Work?

Groupon works as a middleman. It liaisons between businesses and subscribers. Every single day, Groupon sends out an email to each of its millions of readers. The email showcases a particular, location-specific bargain, or Groupon, that is only available for a limited time. Since the deals are usually local, Groupon targets their emails to subscribers from that specific location. Consumers can go on Groupon’s site to find bargains that they are interested in purchasing for themselves or as a gift for someone else.

Unlike with traditional coupons, together with Groupon, the customer must pay upfront. Groupon acts as a gift certificate. To redeem, the customer will need to supply their printed gift certificate or reveal the barcode on a smartphone. Most Groupons are 50 percent off the retail cost. Discounts can vary, even up to 90% off. After a client purchases a Groupon, there is an additional expiration date. Whereas the bargain expires normally within a week of the deal debut, the Groupon itself includes a much longer expiration dateanywhere from 6 to 12 months. Most Groupons also contain fine print that defines what’s included and excluded in the offer.

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How Much Can Groupon Cost?

Groupon requires no upfront payment. This means if no one purchases your Groupon, then you certainly do not pay anything. Instead, Groupon requires a commission from your earnings. In the time of this writing, that commission is 50% of your total. Here’s how it works:

Your service is worth $100. You slash the cost by 50 percent to meet Groupon’s discerningly frugal audience. You stand to earn $50, however, Groupon takes 50 percent of that, leaving you with $25.

Thus, what is your actual cost?

Since Groupon functions like a gift certificate, you still earn money even if the Groupon goes unredeemed. Which, according to Yipit, is close to 20 percent of all Groupon sales. On unredeemed Groupons you make your cut of the sale without having to render the service or product. This might help make up for discounting and the part that Groupon takes.

You might also incorporate strategies like upselling your customers so as to make some of their gain back. For a restaurant, most people can buy drinks (usually not included in Groupon bargains ) or bring extra friends which can drive the price up.

Taking into consideration the lifetime value of the clients is another factor. Typically Groupon works better for businesses like salons over restaurants as a one-time customer to your hair salon may quickly become a repeat customer. Folks need their haircut multiple times a year, and most are faithful to a single place as soon as they find it.

Groupon should be considered as a promotion strategy. Groupon helps to get the consumers in the doorway. Your challenge would be upselling the client in the brief term and developing a connection in the long run.

How to Succeed on Groupon

So how do you turn a sale that possibly puts you in the red into a lucrative marketing plan? In this section we’ll walk through the steps you need to take to make certain you are getting the maximum from your Groupon advertisement.

Attract and Retain New Customers

Groupon’s biggest advantage is that it places your business in front of a large local audience which you probably would be unable to achieve without the website.

Attract these customers to your shop by offering an enticing bargain. Groupon consumers are trained to see large discounts, and they’ll likely turn up their nose at anything less than 50% off. Consider what similar companies are offering on Groupon as a barometer for that which bargains people expect to see out of your kind of business. You will also need to ensure your business is well represented online.

“Don’t just assume that individuals will understand your offer on Groupon and instantly make a purchase — most of them will visit your site, social networking profiles and even read reviews prior to making the purchase, so it is critical that each one of these aspects of your company are up to scratch. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how great your Groupon offer is, you won’t generate leads.”

— Finn Hayden, Mahlatini Luxury Safari

Once you’ve obtained the customers in the door with your attractive deal, it’s time to concentrate on retaining these clients so that you can profit in their repeat business. Here are a Couple of activities you should take to keep folks coming back:

• Supply an wonderful experience: This may seem obvious, but it’s the best way to get someone to return to your shop. This not only includes the grade of the item or service itself, but also how the customer is treated while at your enterprise. Unfortunately, some businesses treat Grouponers as second class clients because of their discount. This translates to negative customer experience, negative reviews, and an array of one-time clients.
• Catch email addresses: Keeping in touch with customers is a fantastic way to keep your business top of mind. 1 means to do this is by regularly sending out a newsletter that offers value to your customers. Think about including deals to entice them to come back to your store. Ensure that you are following email marketing best practices to ensure that people do not wish to unsubscribe.
• Request them to trace your social media pages: You can post hints around your store that ask individuals to follow your webpages, or ask in person. This will keep clients up to date on what’s happening with your organization and encourage repeat business. Make sure you are posting frequently on social networking. Individuals will not like your webpage if there’s nothing interesting on it.

Upsell Clients

Once you have gotten a customer to say yes to your product, it’s easier to convince them to purchase more. Train your employees on ancillary products that work nicely with the merchandise included in the offer. The target is to get customers to spend more than the price amount. By preparing your entire team, you’ll be more effective at upselling your customers.

By way of example, consider that you own a hair salon and our offering a puppy that is discounted. Try up selling customers by asking if they’d like to add out a blow. Additionally, consider that hair products you can offer once the appointment is finished.

Sell Extra Inventory

Another strategy is to get stagnant stock moving by slashing prices and offering the item on Groupon. It’s better to get some revenue than no revenue. Keep in mind that this might be the first time somebody is hearing regarding your business, so be certain it is still a product that you’re pleased with and work to keep the relationship after the deal is finished.

Get More Reviews

A great side benefit of Groupon is increased social evidence. Individuals purchasing a Groupon have been asked to review your service, and much more (positive) reviews can lead to more business. Promoting a Groupon gives you additional chances to have noticed. Plus, the Groupon review could potentially arise in the Google search results when someone searches for your small business, which provides you another spot on the page.

Capitalize on Unredeemed Groupons

One way to gain is through unredeemed Groupons. According to Yipit, 20% of Groupons are never redeemed. This implies you still get paid, though you did not leave the service. You certainly can not base your Groupon marketing around crossing your fingers and hoping no one shows up, but it is a consideration when utilizing Groupon. It’s been demonstrated that greater price Groupons are less inclined to go unredeemed, so if you’re providing a $500 package, don’t expect a lot of your buyers not to cash in.

Which Firms Fare Finest on Groupon?

Not all kinds of businesses have success on Groupon. When considering whether you need to promote on the site, think about these questions:

Are you a new enterprise?

Groupon is a superb way to create buzz about your new organization. Your agreement has the potential to reach thousands of people in the local area, which is great for a business which needs to increase brand awareness. The objective is that everyone who buys your Groupon will then tell their friends about the great new company in the city.

Word of warning: If you are a new business, you could already be struggling to pay for the upfront costs involved in opening a store. Make sure you can handle the deep discounts required of advertisements on the site.

Can you typically see repeat business?

The companies that do best are those that have a simple time driving repeat business from a client. As an instance, think of the nature of a restaurant versus a hair salon. Someone who buys a Groupon into a fancy regional restaurant is the most likely buying it for a special occasion or a gift for someone else. People don’t tend to go to the same expensive restaurant several occasions. You do stand to profit from referrals, however getting repeat business is tricky. Therefore, restaurants actually tend to see the lowest profit from Groupon deals.

Compare this with a hair salon. People are typically loyal to your salon as soon as they find one which suits their specific needs. Clients will see numerous occasions in a year and are likely to consult with the salon into a friend. Even if you lose on the initial effort of finding the customer through the door, the lifetime value of a salon customer has the potential to be enormous.

Can this cannibalize your current company?

Another aspect to think about is how offering this Groupon will influence the relationship with your current clients. If you’re at present relatively active, then the influx of customers could possibly overwhelm your employees, or even worse, push out your faithful long time customers. This is particularly true for booking based services like a restaurant or salon. 1 workaround for this is to only make the Groupon valid on certain occasions and/or days. By way of example, a restaurant could provide a dinner special (a famously slow time) or a salon could have the bargain only valid Monday through Thursday.

Assessing your company is an important step to consider before supplying a Groupon deal. By asking yourself the questions above, you will get a better idea if it is a good alternative for you.

Consider the sort of bargain which you’re providing.

Groupon is not about ignoring your products or services. One offering that works well is an adventure.

“I attempted both offering a solution and also offering classes. The product that has been great for Groupon although not great for all of us. People descended on our store during the holidays and wiped out the inventory that would have sold at full retail to clients. This has been a”live and learn” on my part. The next time, I provided classes which was a great success right from the start. Countless people came to the courses over a 5-year period and it completely changed my small business. They’d participate in 1-hour wine and chocolate pairing course where we spoke about our business, why it was different and our chocolate paired especially well with wine. Then we function 4 wines with 2 chocolates each so that they can have a fantastic experience. Once people have a unique and experience here, they become customers for life.”

— Julie Pech, Owner, The Chocolate Therapist

How To Advertise Groupon in 3 Steps

Now that you are prepared to sign up for Groupon, here are the three simple Actions you need to consider:

1. Subscribe to the Groupon Merchant webpage

Go to the Groupon Merchant signup page and choose the type of deal you’d like to promote.

Fill in your own information and then hit submit. They will then show you different kinds of bargains you can market.

2. Choose your discount

Then you will be requested to enter how much the service generally costs, and how much of a reduction you would like to provide. Groupon gives you a”green zone” for the reduction percentage which will have optimal performance. It also tells you how much money you stand to make for every sale.

For my case hair salon assistance, I inputed the typical cost is $35 and Groupon proposed a 46-54% reduction. Having a 52% reduction, the customer pays $17 and I’d receive $8.50.

3. Work with a Groupon pro or use their deal builder to create your advertisement

You’ll have the ability to choose your image, describe your business, choose your limits (for instance, limiting one per client ) and specify a launch date using the deal builder.

However, if you would like to specify your nice print or alter other details then you are going to have to talk with a specialist.

Ananda Neureither, owner of Crafts & Drafts, provides this information when working together with the Groupon specialist.

“Stay at the top of the folks at Groupon! Check and re-check and then check your record again! Every time I ran a promotion or made any changes to one, there were lots of mistakes! Make sure everything on your record is correct before signing off on it.

You’ll also want to discuss with Groupon wherever your promotion will run and that will see the mails. For instance, my business is located in Chicago and they can target different regions of the town and suburbs, which is a really large land, so make sure you’re targeting your ideal place.”

Based upon your location, Groupon includes a waiting list and approval is not immediate or ensured. Groupon decides whether or not to accept your deal according to local customer needs.

Actions to Take Following Your Groupon is Posted

Once your deal is launched, be certain that you are ready for the possible influx of customers. Offering a Groupon deal will change the day daily of your store. Consider these points to make sure that your company isn’t unhinged while the deal is submitted.

Make sure everyone on staff is notified and correctly trained.

Imagine this scenario. A new customer walks into your shop and proceeds to cover your merchandise with their recently acquired Groupon. The cashier doesn’t have any clue how to redeem the voucher, or insists that there are no discounts. Even if the problem is finally sorted out, the customer will leave with a bad taste in their mouth. Therefore it is important that everybody not only knows that the Groupon has been offered, but also the way to redeem it, and exactly what the terms are.

Do not be caught off guard if there is an influx of customers.

Some companies will see a huge surge of traffic out of a Groupon. This is great, if you can manage it. If you are a mom and pop store, then it may incapacitate your business or overwhelm you to the purpose of not having the ability to redeem all of the Groupons simultaneously.

The week leading up to the expiration date is typically the busiest, so be certain you have plenty of people on staff to manage the rush.

Notice: Make certain you are super clear in regards to the expiration date of your Groupon. Purchasers have already paid for your ceremony, and you’ll get paid if they utilize your service. This is very good for you but unlucky to get a customer who comes within a day late. Be certain that you train your employees on the best way best to deal with this kind of situation.

Cap the amount of deals offered so that you don’t run out of stock.

You definitely do not want to sell more of your product or service than you can create. A good method to protect against this mismatch would be to cap the number of Groupons accessible. If you are worried about running out of appointment/reservation times, then another smart action to consider is to set up restrictions for appointment times. This will prevent a deluge of customers arriving all on one Saturday.

Bottom Line

Marketing on Groupon is a superb way to broaden your audience and the reach of your business. However, because of the required discounting and the percentage that Groupon takes, it’s difficult to make a profit directly from Groupon sales. Ensure that you have your strategy in place for how you’ll keep clients coming back once you’ve gotten them through the doorway.