COUPON COMPANY PLATFORMS
PROS:
- REACH: Groupon is the ultimate mass-eyeball platform, where people can search for the latest offers in or around their location. On the plus side, it has high brand awareness – in 2022 YouGov found that 88% of Britons had heard of it.
- FINDS CLIENTS QUICKLY: Laurence Wilson of Dorset-based salon Riva Hair says: ‘Groupon makes offers that are easy to set up and easy to buy. It’s good as a solution to get new clients quickly.’ It’s worth remembering that salon owners can get more out of coupon platform providers if they use them tactically – for instance, if they are used to promote under-used services or options.
Another way to get more out of these providers is by using them to test which discounts yield the best responses, enabling owners to fine-tune their offers.
CONS:
SALON OWNERS WILL NEED TO ASSESS THE COSTS VERSUS BENEFITS OF USING SUCH SITES
- TOO COSTLY? Groupon typically requires a 50-75% discount – which could actually cost salon owners money to fulfil in terms of the time they’ve spent paying their employees to deliver the service. Then there’s the commission. ‘Coupon companies can take 50% of an already very heavily discounted offer,’ says Laurence.
- TOO BIG A RESPONSE? ‘I’ve actually seen salons go out of business because the discount has been too popular and they can’t live up to what was sold,’ says Phil Evans, managing director at Salon Guru. ‘You have to be careful about what the response rate could be.’
- WILL THEY REALLY BUILD NEW CLIENTS? Groupon claims more than 80% of clients say they’re likely to return to the business they’ve visited. However, return custom is doubted by salon owners. ‘Quite a few salon owners I know say they’ve tried coupon companies, but report that they only attract one-off custom – people who want big discounts but won’t pay full price for other services, so won’t return,’ says Sandra Cross, owner of Great Malvern based Altitude Hair Salon. ‘They may be good to get people through the door, but you need to know what you want to achieve.’
- LOSS OF INFORMATION: ‘If you sell through a third party, they’ll take your information,’ warns Phil. ‘Do you really want to be giving marketing information away, too?’