Evolving Your Deals Program: Seasonal & Category Stores
We recently discussed reasons to run Side Deals, which leads us into another popular model for deals programs – Seasonal & Category Stores.
Seasonal and Category Stores are a way to expand what you started with Side Deals. Unlike Side Deals, these offers are organized around a specific theme or season. By curating deals with a theme in mind, you can elevate them to something more unique. Any holiday is ripe for creating a seasonal store including Valentine’s Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day, and Christmas. One of the key tenets of “Deal Appeal” is running a deal that is seasonally appropriate, and a Seasonal Store plays into this strength perfectly. Seasonal Stores open up opportunities by creating a new area for non-featured deals to live or deals with inventory limitations. This gives you the flexibility to approach merchants you may have passed over because of a restriction on their deal. You can approach a category store much in the same way.
Category store examples include geographically-focused deals, Summer Savings, Golf or Travel Deals, or even a sub-category like Pizza Deals with merchants from across your entire market. A best practice for Seasonal Stores is to plan them far in advance of the holiday. That way, you can be strategic about your promotions for the deal and get your sales team focused and roused up about getting the best offers possible. Finally, whatever theme or category you pick, make sure the deals fit with it, so that you can have a cohesive group of deals to present to your users.
Next, we discuss using a Deals Mall to add a little spice to your deals program.
