Top Tips for Offering a Bargain to your Customers! by Tatia Power

We all love a Bargain!

Everybody loves a good bargain! No surprise there. The growing popularity of ‘Daily Deal’ sites such as Spreets, Cudo, Jump On It, Our Deal and such, shows us just how much consumers are ready to snap up a great offer when they see it.

So are you getting in on this action? Before you go printing off hundreds of coupons, have a think about what you want to offer and how it will reflect on your business. A simple 10% off will not get customers beating down your door. It really doesn’t represent a great saving to the average purchase and isn’t likely to get people excited. It is always better to ‘Add Value’ than reduce price. Discounting can lead to a perception of lowered standards and we are all a little jaded by it these days. Think of the never-ending 80% off ‘Closing Down Sale’ rug companies always promote. Do you see those ads and think ‘Oh – I must rush in and get that bargain before it is too late!’? It is never too late! In fact, I challenge you to buy a rug at full price – you can’t!

So how do you add value without ruining your profit margin? Firstly choose to a product or service that has a high perceived value, but doesn’t necessarily cost you a lot. For instance a beauty salon that offers IPL treatments – they have already outlaid the money for the machinery and although obviously they need to make enough over time to cover that expense, throwing a treatment in with a package deal doesn’t really cost them more money. However to the consumer, it is a specialised treatment that when offered for free with another service becomes very tempting.

Which leads to the next tip for value adding – offer a product or service that creates a long term customer. One IPL treatment won’t do much, however after trying it you have a greater chance of convincing your customer to keep coming back. Next time they pay full price, because you never offered it at a discount – just a freebie to see if they liked it.

Package deals create excitement and can generate word of mouth advertising. Grouping several of your products or services together and offering it at a bargain price means the customer feels like they are getting an unbeatable deal while you can hide your profit margins. Still using the beauty salon example (honestly – this works for all types of businesses – I just seem to be stuck on beauty today!) the expense for having 5 clients in store receiving 5 different services is much higher than having just one client in store receiving 5 different services. It takes less time and staff to service the one client, plus offers a better opportunity to ‘woo’ them and hopefully turn them into a regular.

Offer group deals to get more people through your door. This is the strength of sites such as Spreets and Cudo et al – nobody gets the deal unless a predetermined number of people purchase. Giving away a 2 for 1 whale watching cruise (see – I moved on from beauty!) may not be worth it to the cruise company, however if they sold 30 of these deals it is well and truly worth it.

Once you have come up with a great offer – make it easier for people to talk about it. Social media is a god-send to small businesses wishing to promote themselves. Post your deal all over the internet and encourage others to do it for you. Give people an incentive for referring their friends. Facebook has loads of sites that are happy to have people post on their walls about special deals – the Shoutout pages  , Amazing Offers  , The Mummy Tree  , Support a WAHP (Work At Home Parent)  – just be sure to check their rules for posting on the wall.

So a quick guide to the tips creating a Special Offer

• Don’t discount – Value Add

• Choose a service/product with high perceived value, yet doesn’t cost you a lot

• Offer a service/product that entices people to keep coming back

• Create an unbeatable package deal to show off several services/products

• Offer deals for ‘group’ purchases to get people talking to their friends

• Promote it EVERYWHERE!

• Offer incentives to those who pass your deal on to others

The Kitchen Table Network encourages members to offer deals within the network. If you have a great offer you’d like to promote to the women of TKTN send it in to enquiry@tktn.com.au – we have big plans in store for 2011 and this is one area we will be working hard on. So get your deals in now so we can help promote your business!

By Tatia Power