Groupon Type Deals

[Doug Kelley]

Or try this...

Use Groupon to sell a special event, not a normal operating night. Perhaps a "behind the scenes" night or a "flashlight night" at a 200% markup over a normal event night. This way you may be able to reach both repeat customers AND new customers looking for something different. I agree using Groupon to sell a normal night isn't worth the price but if you can create a special Groupon-only event then you might just have something worthwhile. The best of both worlds.

[Terrorknight]

Groupon and such

We used the two major deal sites and two minor ones and we are using it as just a new marketing idea to reach people that maybe wouldn't come out normally. As of second weekend open we sold a ton of deals most of them so far new customers and all have loved it. I'm very happy we tried it and i'd do it again. I would rather give away part of my ticket for a guaranteed customer then $10,000 to $20,000 for a radio station to blow smoke up my ass.

Robert Dudzieck

[MidnightEvil]

I got a call today from a Groupond clone and I told him stop the fast talk
and put his proposal in writing.

Look at the good deal this clown tried to slip by me.
You need to read the fine print before you agree to the deal



1.4 Payment. dealgrind will pay Merchant the Remittance Amount for each Voucher properly activated for which a purchaser has fully paid dealgrind. Merchant is registered for sales and use tax collection purposes, and shall be responsible for paying all sales and use taxes related to the goods and services described in the offer. dealgrind shall forward one-third of the then-collected Remittance Amount Total to Merchant withinten (10) business days after the Run Date, one-third of the then-collected Remittance Amount Total withinthirty (30) business days after the Run Date, and one-third of the then-collected Remittance Amount Total within sixty (60) business days after the Run Date. Amounts retained by dealgrind are compensation to dealgrind for the service of advertising and selling the Vouchers for Merchant.

Here is my reply back short and sweet

Sorry Michael
I can not agree to this, way to long to get payed. Good deal for you Bad for me

[HauntedMemphis]

Those were pretty good payment terms as far as timing for most industry. I wish everything got paid on terms even close to that in corporate america.

[MidnightEvil]

Got an email from yahoo today about there daily deals

Man O man hows next

[HauntedDeadEnd]

We just completed Groupon ran it for 3 days but sold out in 12 hours 300 tix.
This is our second year and it helps spread the word.
It's not our fault if people found our Groupon deal and others pay full price we also have 5k flyers promoting a $2 off coupon in various stores, Halloween stores, local businesses so they had a chance as well as Facebook coupon so our coupons are out there. We alos made it avail for any night they would like to attend.

[JackoWcko]

I guess Larry changed his mind..

http://www.groupon.com/deals/scarefest

[HauntedMemphis]

Just a little bit of experience of what I've seen with groupon.

We have 3 events at our location. Each of the 3 events is independently run.

One of the events ran a groupon deal this year. Some of the hope was that people would get on site and then buy tickets to the other events as well. I've seen 0, yes 0 sales for my event generated by getting people onsite for groupon. (Several hundred groupon tickets were sold.)

The people using groupon basically have come in, used their 1/2 off ticket for one event, and left again. They don't even head for the ticket booth to look for tickets for other events.

[drfrightner]

No didn't change my mind... I did ONE my lowest attended haunted house and limited the ticket use to only 4 days all weekdays, and they lowered their feet to rock bottom. This is a test... I'm doing this for my own business and you guys as well. They caved in on every single demand I made and I'm only doing it for information.

If I didn't agree with every word I said then I would have done Creepyworld which is doing awesome, I would have done Darkness. Lemp is only doing okay. They originally wanted it open to use tickets any night... I said NO! They wanted 50% I said no. They wanted 30% I said NO!

Anyway I'm using four weak week nights for data. Once I have the final data I'm going to pass along. BUT NO I AM NOT doing a deal with these guys for weekends, my best haunts nothing.

Larry

[monsterwax]

Larry makes a very important point: These guys have a lot of flexibility because they have virtually NO overhead or "skin in the game". It's all profit to them and we're the ones with the fixed costs. They just have a big email list and we all know email doesn't even have to pay for stamps! So any deal you make with them is going to be gravy for them, while the reverse is not always the case. We have to pay all the bills and if something goes wrong, we're the ones who get sued. How the eating places can survive giving away 75% of the retail is mind boggling. (They have to pay SOMETHING for the ingredients!) Bottom line is if you use them, do it as filler on the days you need bodies and negotiate a deal that leaves you with a lot better than 25%.

[HauntedPaws]

The eateries actually take a lose in an attempt to make a future customer.

[drfrightner]

Since doing this little promotion from Groupon I've got a call or email from 10 knock off sites... one group wants me to take 40% of ticket sales they get 60% because they do advertising for your company in addition. Every single tv, newpaper, blah, blah local here is running a program like this and have some sort of offer they will make you. Overall I will have a final report on this but I can already tell you its not worth it what so ever unless you are a very small haunted house then and only then can you make it worth it to you. Larry

[JamBam]

Okay listen up my friends... I am a marketing master and ARE YOU F*CKING CRAZY!

Larry,

Let me congratulate you on becoming a Groupon merchant. LOL

After reading all your anti-deal rants I did learn from your experience of negotiating that a better deal than 50/50 is possible. That will help all of us that do it in the future with any of the sites. The other thing that I have learned from doing two years of Groupon deals and this thread is that any deal must be well planned to avoid giving away money that will come to me anyway. The marketing to an audience that may not have been familiar with us is the real potential.

Some on this thread brought up the point of regular customers buying and undercutting the potential. So I looked at my customer data yesterday and compared both years. There were 435 sold in 2010 single VIP/Fastpass tix and 220 sold in 2011 for two for one VIP/FastPass tix. There was only ONE name on both lists, which really surprised me as I figured it would be up to twenty percent possibly. Have any others compared their lists?

Your Lemp deal is very precise and targeted to a weak segment of your schedule. What you have to remember is it is still marketing, not sales. There will be other residual business unmeasurable that will come to the event especially if you would direct the customers from the deal page to a new web page that will also promote your other two events. Trying to do an upsell to the other two events when they come to Lemp is also a potential you could do.

Thanks in advance for sharing the results of your deal. All of these sites will be caught by surprise next year when all that have read this thread are negotiating better terms and fees.

[drfrightner]

I do things unlike most just to learn. I've lost more money trying new things only to learn more of what I should do or shouldn't do. All the talk about Groupon I went ahead with Lemp for several reasons...

1) To learn about how this works and get some insight so I can share my experience.

2) Lemp is the lowest attended haunted house I have.

3) Weekdays are really slow so I limited this to four days they could be used.

These guys do NOT do what I asked for they just caved in because they wanted to do the deal. Here are a few things I learned...

1) Groupon deal is NOT something I would do again.

2) I don't like their redemption system most is by phone meaning you validate by their phone. When you get the printed ticket you have no clue if that means its validated or not because they give you no scanner. I hate it.

3) They pay like this... they give you 33% of your money after 30 days, 33% again after another 30 days, and the last payment after a total of 90 days. Most of you guys could NEVER accept these terms. They do this for several reasons... one they are sitting on your money collecting interest. Two they want to cover their ass in case you have someone who didn't like it and want their money back. Soooo... you are at their mercy like Walmart. If you sell to Walmart and a customer breaks something then brings it back in and gives them a new one YOU ARE STUCK WITH THE BROKEN ONE.

So let me be clear... IF you sell 100 tickets and 50 say it sucked and want their money back you are at GROUPONS MERCY because its no skin off their nose. Plus you wait a total of 90 days to collect your funds.

So what did I learn ... DO NOT EVER DO THESE DEALS EVER! YOU ARE A FOOL... will I do it again NO WAY!

But in the end did I learn anything?

Yes I did... I learned that because I sell tickets ONLINE I can create all kinds of special promotions and discount codes. This is a MORE effective way to promote your business if you want to do HEAVY DISCOUNTS...

I am using discounts to gain more Facebook friends... let me explain. I offered a deal called "FLASHBACK" where I roll the prices back to 10 years ago for one day online if I gained 1000 friends within 3 days... guess what I got 1300 new friends. Now when I put my message across on facebook I now reach 1300 more people.

I've learned that today there are so many options out there to market and so many that are worthless you have to be careful... do I know what I'm doing YES you but your F*CKING AZZ... however does that mean sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet? YES!

I did this to see the details and now you have my findings... DO NOT DO IT! Use the money YOU LOSE with Groupon and put it into things like discounts through your friends on facebook, or mass emails with discount codes, take the money you lose with Groupon and create a better website. Did I get more customers... yes Lemp did nearly TWICE what Darkness did however Darkness made MORE MONEY!

In the end its not about how many customers you get its about how many dollars you get from each customer. If Darkness gets 250 customers and Lemp gets 400 thanks to Groupon Darkness still made MORE money and I had 150 LESS headaches!

Larry

[JamBam]

Lessons learned

Larry,

Thanks for the input. You bring up many valid points that are important to remember when doing deals like this.

Still sounds like you are looking for revenue rather than marketing with a deal like this. I don't count the groupons as revenue. I write them off as free passes, with the groupon money simply as an extra on my income sheet. Last year groupon said they had 35,000 on their Ft Wayne email list. This year they claimed 135,000, yet the numbers were very similar.

What was the St Louis list number, did they tell you?


Again as I put in my last post, I can only see one person as having bought both years and it is still only half way through the season. That low number reassures me that there were new customers coming to my door. Many bring others with them and when their friends buy tickets, they buy the VIP/FastPass so they can go in together. That is an upsale and at max price. Word of mouth is still the best advertising so many of those people will tell their friends how awesome the Lemp is and you won't be able to rack that.

Have you checked your website stats to see what happened to the traffic on that page and where they went after going to the entry page?

I do think that you are on to something that could be big with the facebook marketing. That is one seminar I definetely will be going to somewhere whether it is Trasnworld or anywhere. The potential is huge and tracking it is possible ao I will be trying to learn as much as possible on it.