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Archive
Posts Tagged ‘deadline deals’
 The group commerce space continues on a dynamic and exciting path of growth and expansion. More and more, we are seeing deal sites take cues from traditional ecommerce sites and create shopping environments – more deals, deals organized around a theme or season, and deals running beyond a single day. Ultimately, high deal quality and solid promotions will continue to drive the most revenue, but by enhancing your current site with a new approach, you can maximize your revenue and growth potential in 2012.
While certainly not a new phenomenon, Side Deals now have a more distinct role than ever. The original motivator for having Side Deals was simply to give users more variety of deals than a deal-a-day could offer. The thought was more deals meant more revenue with side deals being an area to post deals that you knew weren’t Featured Deal quality but still wanted to run. Many sites that have tested Side Deals have come to the conclusion that Side Deals as their own category aren’t huge sellers. Rather, by using Side Deals as a way to extend the life of Featured Deals, they’re seeing much better results.
This also highlights a greater trend that 24 hours isn’t always enough time to maximize sales. For example, The Miami Herald had a recent successful deal in which 65% of deals were sold after the first day. They run their deals for a total of seven days – one day as a Featured Deal and six days as a Side Deal. This approach allows you to have more deals per day and populate the site with the same high-quality deals you approve as your Featured Deals. Moreover, this begins to lay the groundwork for another trend – the emergence of Seasonal and Category Stores.
Second Street works with over 400 local media sites to power their deals programs, and we asked some of our partners to share their most effective promotions, favorite deals of 2011 and share their resolutions for the new year.
What are your “deals resolutions” for 2012?
“We plan to survey our merchants to better understand their experience with our program and their wants/needs of a local daily deal program, then make enhancements based on the feedback and hopefully get some testimonials. Also, we need to better understand our audience in order to help our sales team bring in deals that are fitting and desired by our users. Also, as we increase our email subscribers, we want to turn those people into buyers. We know that buyers are even more valuable than subscribers, in part, because of how often they share the deal and refer friends/family in addition to making purchases. Currently, we have an average of 8% referral rate.”
- Joe Matar and Stacey Stefani
The Gazette and KCRG, Cedar Rapids, IA
 “To become the #1 deal site in our market – we have climbed from #3 to #2 in just six months. We beat out Living Social and now we have our sights set on surpassing Groupon in 2012. In order to do that, we need our salesperson to have more time selling, so we are investing in our to program and getting a full-time assistant to help with deal calendar management and customer service. ”
- Conan Gallaty
Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Little Rock, AR
“We began by running the deals for three days, but now we try to run most a full week. That’s because many of our deals sell at least as well on the final day or two as they do on the first two. We’ve found that keeping the deals around longer gives more people a chance to buy. They may be checking the current day’s deal and realize they overlooked a previous one. For 2012, we’ll be sticking to the basics – restaurants and other high-impact deals – plus grouping deals thematically around holidays like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.”
- Dan Day
The Modesto Bee, Modesto, CA
With 2012 upon us, there is a lot to be hopeful for in terms of the continued growth of group commerce and daily deals. Second Street works with over 400 local media sites to power their deals programs, and we asked some of our partners to share their favorite promotions and highlights from 2011.
What was your favorite deal that your site ran in 2011 and why?
“In April, we ran a deal for a Horse Camp. We didn’t know what to expect. The maximum available was 60, which is less than what we would normally take, but with a high price point of $160 a piece, we knew we would still make our revenue goals by selling out. Well, we sold out! The deal was for a 4 day horse camp in the summer (a $320 value). We learned that our audience is looking for things to do and want a good deal for a family/kids activity. And to top it off, this deal was not available anywhere else and was a unique opportunity that only we offered.”
- Joe Matar and Stacey Stefani
The Gazette and KCRG, Cedar Rapids, IA
“My favorite was David’s Burgers who sold 1,462 vouchers and, in the middle of his sale, wanted to pull the plug because too many people were coming into the business and not reading the restrictions correctly. But once Keith (the salesperson) worked with him to help show the owner how to convert these first-time visitors into loyal customers (even if they didn’t read the fine print), he was so pleased with the program that he did a testimonial for us.”
- Conan Gallaty
Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Little Rock, AR
“Late in the year, we had a series of golf deals from a group of five commonly owned and managed courses. The last two sold well not only in our market but in the neighboring markets of Merced and Fresno. It was great to see a regional deal catch fire and extend our reach outside our market.”
- Dan Day
The Modesto Bee, Modesto, CA
What was your favorite deal of 2011? Share it with us in the comments section.
With 2012 upon us, there is a lot to be hopeful for in terms of the continued growth of group commerce and daily deals. Many sites experienced recording-breaking Decembers because of successful seasonal stores and promotions around the holidays. More broadly, ecommerce continues to see increased usage and tremendous year-over-year gains. Second Street works with over 400 local media sites to power their deals programs, and we asked some of our partners to share highlights from 2011.
What was your most effective promotion in 2011 for growing your email list?
“We did an enter-to-win sweepstakes in the fall of 2011 for two Iowa Hawkeye Football Tickets. It was a two-week contest with 1,360 entries. We included a pre-checked box to sign-up to receive the email for our *here’s the deal program, and we acquired 894 NEW subscribers for *here’s the deal.”
- Joe Matar and Stacey Stefani
The Gazette and KCRG, Cedar Rapids, IA
“Our best single email growth effort was a mobile sign-up at a local 4th of July event. We were on stage at a concert before the fireworks and held out an iPad2. We asked everyone in the audience (about a thousand) to text a message to a specific code to win. Then, when they got the text back, it asked them to enter in their email address to get great deals from ArkansasDailyDeal.com. We had 600+ people sign up in five minutes!”
- Conan Gallaty
Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Little Rock, AR
“No matter what we do, we can’t top the results we get when we roll out a hot deal that everyone seems to want. The biggest boost our list got was shortly after we launched our Dealsaver program and featured a grocery store ad. We sold out our allotment of 1,000 vouchers within several hours; there was a frenzied reaction to the deal.”
- Dan Day
The Modesto Bee, Modesto, CA
9 Tips to Secure Great Deals for Your Valentine’s Store
Seasonal Deal Stores can be a strategic enhancement to any group commerce site, so with Valentine’s Day a little over a month away, now is the time to start planning your store by getting your deals lined up, scheduling your promotions, and prepping your site for success. Here are a few tips for getting the most out of your Valentine Day’s Store.
1. Use your store as a way to push into new and interesting categories that you may not normally pursue. Don’t limit yourself to the obvious candy-and-flowers routine.
2. Your store can also be the perfect place to allow deals with limited inventory to run and get those strong merchants on-board that you may have passed over for a Featured Deal slot. Merchants with only a set number of deals to sell can still be great offers!
A few category ideas:
- Shared Adventure – hot air balloon, skydiving, horseback riding
- Wine or Wine Clubs
- Jewelry and Gift Shops
- Mobile Detailing
- Clothing Boutiques
- Spa Treatments
- Massage
- Movie or Theater Tickets
- Photography Session for Two
- Photo-on-Canvas
3. Identifying key categories and key accounts ahead of time and rewarding those reps that bring in the top deals or the most deals from a targeted category is a great motivator to find those Grade A deal opportunities.
4. Including your merchants’ logos and offer in the ads is a great selling point for securing the best deals.
5. These stores also give your marketing department a theme to promote around. The success of your store depends, in large part, on how well you promote it. Getting the word out early and consistently is key to drumming up excitement among your users as well as merchants.
6. For Valentine’s Day Store in particular, consider creating two promotional campaigns – one targeting men and one for women – and feature the appropriate deals for that gender.
7. Valentine’s Day lands on a Tuesday this year, so there will likely be a lot of couples celebrating the weekend before. So, to make sure you’re covered, you should launch your store around the first of the month and let it run through the 14th. This will allow you to reach those shoppers who prefer to buy early as well as accommodate those who might need a last-minute gift.
8. Refreshing your sites’ look and feel with the colors and images of the season is always a best practice. Whatever you use online – colors, copy, graphics – be sure to also use in your offline promotions to keep your branding consistent.
9. Certainly don’t forget to leverage one of your most powerful assets – your Featured Deal email. Include promotions and top deals from your store here to make sure your most loyal users are aware of the special event!
Whether your deals are gifts or are a way for couples to enjoy the holiday, a Valentine’s Day Store can give you a first quarter boost and bring a little love to your deals site.
Categories: Deals Best Practices Tags: best practices, couples, dates, deadline deals, deals, February, holiday, love, new models, seasonal stores, valentine's
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