Background:
I took on a new client who was obtaining all their new business via Groupon. If you’re not familiar, Groupon is a platform that sells vouchers on your behalf. The services you offer must be discounted and Groupon typically takes up to 50% of the final purchase price. For example: You sell a membership at $100/month. You discount your membership to $50/month and sell vouchers via Groupon. Customers purchase the vouchers at $50, Groupon takes $25 and you are left with the remaining $25. Ouch.
Case Study:
Client received 78 new patients via her Groupon efforts over the course of six months. The total payout for 78 customers was $1332.10. Enter Vira Creative. Month one, we revamped client’s website. Month two, we quit Groupon. For the next eight months we used integrated marketing tactics to drive traffic to the Client’s website where people can learn about their services and book online. These tactics included: Social Media, E-mail Marketing, utilizing the local Chamber of Commerce, Promotions, Database Marketing, and Online Advertising. (Advertising costs didn’t exceed $110/month.)
Results:
52 new clients over the course of eight months. All of which paid either full price or full price less a 20% or less discount. The math works out like this: The profit off these 52 (non-Groupon) clients was between four to six times greater than the profit off the 75 Groupon clients. Keep in mind these results were achieved in just two more months’ time than the Groupon results but yielded far great profits.
Key Take-A-Ways:
Use Groupon when: You need clients fast; you don’t have the time, manpower or knowledge to execute other marketing tactics in its place, and/or when some profit is better than no profit.
Know that: Groupon customers will often refer people to your business but they’ll be sure to tell their friends and family to use a voucher too.
Do your best to: Give your Groupon customers a reason to come back (even if that means they pay full price) versus going back on the Groupon site and finding a voucher from another business that offers the same thing you do. (In other-words, figure out a way to retain them.)
Realize that: “Better” results take longer but the payout is usually greater.
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