Using social media to optimise your daily deals offers.

There has never been a better time to get a good deal online. Our inboxes are overflowing with offers, and with recession number two in the mix, online promotions are more popular with consumers than ever before.

As a business, the temptation to boost customer levels by using deals platforms, such as Groupon or Living Social is always there. Daily deals sites present companies with the opportunity to grow their customer base and shift stock without any upfront costs. On face value this is fantastic, but there are pitfalls to be wary of.

Customer service

In order to achieve positive business results, it’s imperative for companies using deals sites to deliver a consistently high-quality customer experience. Many of the bigger deals platforms fail to allow businesses to do this, meaning negative results and poor customer feedback.

Cost

The main reason to offer deals is to generate increased income, but you'd be surprised by the number of businesses that lose money after failing to read the small print. Remember to factor in additional costs to keep up with the potential high demand for your deal.

Non-personalised deals

Many consumers are becoming frustrated with the sheer volume of non-personalised, generic offers that they receive every day. With many deals sites, the only separating factor is geographical location.

However, people often receive large numbers of offers that they have no interest in. This means an increasing number of emails from deals providers are going unread.

CRM

Many businesses choose to use deals platforms to drive footfall into a bricks-and-mortar premises. To do this, it is imperative that deals are tracked and customer data collected, yet many deals platforms make it almost impossible to do so.

With no data, businesses often struggle to refine their strategy according to customer insight, which has a knock-on effect on their ability to drive sales.

So, what is the answer to these problems?

Mashable recently reported that one of the main reasons that customers follow businesses on social media sites is to get access to deals and special offers. There are numerous advantages to offering deals via Facebook:

· Once a Fan has ‘Liked’ your brand’s page and granted permission to receive information, businesses gain access to their profile data for CRM activity.

· As a social platform, Facebook allows your Fans to market a brand via their news feed to an extended network of friends and family.

· Never underestimate the power of ‘social’. Consumer buying activities are, by nature, social actions, often undertaken by friends and family. People look for validation in their purchasing decisions in the form of recommendations and reviews. Indeed, consumers are four times more likely to purchase if they see that a friend has bought the same item.

It’s clear that by harnessing Facebook’s viral power, businesses can maximise their brand awareness to drive sales and new customer acquisition, collecting CRM data in the process. That data in turn allows businesses to gain solid consumer insight and so tailor their offers appropriately – to the benefit of customer relationships.