{"id":3325,"date":"2011-08-06T01:15:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-06T01:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=3325"},"modified":"2011-08-06T01:15:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-06T01:15:57","slug":"think-before-you-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/think-before-you-discount\/","title":{"rendered":"Think before you discount"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Until recently, \u201csocial media fatigue\u201d has been the most dangerous \u201ccondition\u201d that we social media marketers have had to combat.\u00a0\u00a0Now, however,\u00a0with the recent trend toward frequent deep discounts and coupon offers, we are risking an even more serious condition of \u201coffer fatigue.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Social media fatigue is of course of concern to social media marketers, but I think it will continue to be seen most often as simply an unfortunate side effect to the incredible advances that social media has brought to human connections and access to information.\u00a0\u00a0Offer fatigue, on the other hand, has serious consequences for our brands.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using coupons in a digital world the same as they were used in traditional distribution is very dangerous to brand equity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Constantly discounting a product through frequent couponing or huge deal discounts on products\u00a0\u00a0\u2013 and especially services \u2014 destroys brand equity and lowers perceived value.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider a service such as Groupon, which offers coupons for substantial discounts of its clients\u2019 products and services.\u00a0\u00a0Great news for customers,\u00a0but not so great news for Groupon\u2019s clients<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0As many understand,\u00a0\u00a0Groupon is not an ecommerce business \u2013 its value is in lead generation\u2026 but I\u2019m not sure these \u201cleads\u201d are as valuable as Groupon clients may think.<\/p>\n

While there is of course great value in catching an initial sale from an otherwise inactive shopper, the challenge shows up when we try to build an ongoing relationship with this \u201chot\u201d lead.\u00a0\u00a0They will continue to expect these deep discounts,\u00a0because they will see those discounted prices as the actual value of the product or service.<\/strong> It is extremely difficult to turn a workable percentage of those \u2018lost leader\u201d buyers into profitable customers and have a metric that covers the upfront investment.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In many cases, it is easier to gain a repeat buyer through moderate discounts and infrequent coupon offers.<\/p>\n

One way to think of it is that many brands are beginning to suffer from the delivery pizza effect. \u00a0A $15 pizza is now worth $10 in the eyes of most consumers because of constant discounts, 2 for 1 coupons, etc.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Offer a discount often enough and that lower price becomes the expected price\u2026 and, in the consumer\u2019s mind,\u00a0the actual value<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoupons create new trial. As a mom I love the satisfaction of knowing that I saved my family money by using coupons. By using a coupon I am in control of my budget not the retailer,\u201d commented Social Fabric\u00ae member\u00a0Melissa Garcia of\u00a0ConsumerQueen.com<\/a>. \u201cIf brands were to take coupons away and only go for low price that might work for awhile but eventually the low price becomes regular price in my mind. So your back to square one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brand equity is seriously at stake here.\u00a0\u00a0We marketers need to band together to preserve the ability to be recognized and compensated for the true value of our products and services.\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t get in the game of over-couponing, under-bidding and de-valuing.\u00a0\u00a0Please, discount responsibly.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Ted Rubin<\/p>\n

Originally posted at Collective Bias<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Until recently, \u201csocial media fatigue\u201d has been the most dangerous \u201ccondition\u201d that we social media marketers have had to combat.\u00a0\u00a0Now, however,\u00a0with the recent trend toward frequent deep discounts and coupon offers, we are risking an even more serious condition of \u201coffer fatigue.\u201d Social media fatigue is of course of concern to social media marketers, but … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[28,375,1184,778,1387,32,1389,1391,1390,30,1388,1029,3],"class_list":["post-3325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-tedrubin","tag-brand-equity","tag-brand-value","tag-collective-bias","tag-groupon","tag-how-to-preserve-brand-equity","tag-marketing","tag-offer-fatigue","tag-online-coupon-offers","tag-online-discounts","tag-social-media","tag-social-media-fatigue","tag-social-media-marketing","tag-ted-rubin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3325"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3328,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325\/revisions\/3328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}