Q: How successful have other community colleges been with social marketing deals like Groupon and/or Living Social?
A: I’ve had a few members ask me about this, I don’t know any who are using them but I do have some info to share with you.
Last fall, both the yoga studio where I practice and our local Jazzercise affiliate did Groupon and Add Sheet (our local “deals” paper). Anticipating this might be an area of interest to some of our members, I had talked to the owners. Based on my conversations with them, I developed some recommendations I have been using:
Do NOT anticipate making money on this deal. It’s a way to introduce people to your classes so consider it a marketing strategy and budget for it accordingly.
Limit the deal to new customers (or have 2 levels of strategies, one for new customers, a different one for current customers OR the best strategy is to give your current customers a “heads-up” that a deal is coming out but offer them a special of their own before the deal is public, then limit the deal to new customers—this makes your current customers feel valued even if they don’t purchase the special)
More than likely, you will only retain ½ or fewer of these “deal people”. Make sure the potential lifetime value is worth the expense of the deal. (The Jazzercise affiliate is continuing to do the deals because they found it to be worth it but the yoga studio isn’t. The yoga studio is actually having more success rewarding current customers for sharing deals with their friends on Facebook.)
Questions
Social Marketing Deals
Jun 20, 2018 2:19:15 AM
by
Jordan Kivley
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