Although we all have heard of the success and failings of daily deal websites that sell to consumers, Forrester Research has identified that “Daily deal sites for businesses are a growing trend.” A “deals for business” website could be just the perfect path to profits. How? By delivering deals to small businesses with the right software and services that help them increase revenue while reducing costs by achieving the discounts that big business gets.
Small business owners are beginning to use a combination of “deals for consumers” and “deals for businesses” group buying sites to optimize their customers, revenue and profit for the holidays. While the deal for consumer sites (i.e. Groupon) help promote the small business service to consumers, deal for business sites (i.e. GroupPrice) enable the owners to grow and manage their whole business better. Here is how! If you want to run an online promotion of your business, use Groupon. If you want to improve your social network reach, produce a video, send out a press release, or update your website use B2B sites like GroupPrice!
With the holiday shopping season upon us, small retailers can compete by trying these six tips:
Social media. Create Facebook and LinkedIn sites, and tell your story to your audience weekly. Tell them about you, your business, what you offer, all content that is interesting and relevant. Remember to use the key words and phrases that they will search for in all of your posts.
Send emails. Subject lines are key to increase the open rate, and the offer will improve the purchase rate. Time your emails to the right day and right time so they stand out.
Referral process that becomes viral. Implement efficient public relations with customer testimonials. Have your customers tell their friends. When you have new customers or great news, use it as validation of your offering’s value. Test to see if incentives work, like “$5 off your next purchase if you refer a friend and they sign up.” Refining a viral approach is the greatest way to reduce the cost of acquiring new customers.
Prices matter. However, finding the emotional connection is essential in converting browsers to buyer as well. Use a fun combination of colorful graphics, words and music to entice buyers.
Use Blog messages that engage. Connect a blog to your site and use Twitter to do micro blogging of your message. Use short messages of relevant content with links back to your website, to encourage interaction between you and your audience. Run contests, seek feedback with surveys, and give away something free that brings them back to your site.
HAVE FUN with it all, knowing that your audience is moving online quickly, and they all need to buy goods and services like yours – that enables their business to Grow Online and Manage Online. GroupPrice enables all types of businesses whether they want to BUY or want to SELL online. Come join the fun, and Grow Your Business for Less.
A very important article to all who are working in the social commerce arena. I most agree with your second tip “Referral process that becomes viral” it is great for a business if it can create a buzz, if it’s clientele shares deals, items etc with their friends.
You mention companies that does deals for business, like Zizio, they allow Magento users to have control and post daily deals and group deals on their own site! plus I know they recently developed a sharing tool that can help the users to share the deals via social media
The holiday season is a major time for all retailers, it would be foolish not to take full advantage of it