“Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value.” - Philip Kotler
Daily deals and excessive discounting tells me two things: you are desperate and do not have a clear plan or point of difference for growing your business.
Yes, they are so tempting. And yes, they can drive a ton of traffic and short-term sales. But my question to you is at what cost?
- Discounting erodes brand equity aka value.
- Discounting attracts discount shoppers, which is only awesome if you are a discount brand. And if you are, you can stop reading this.
- Discounting tells me your only point of difference is price.
- Discounting trains people to ask for discounts.
- Discounting tells me the value of the service is actually the discounted price, not the actual price.
- Discounting tells me you do not have a clear understanding of how to increase word of mouth and referrals.
Depending on your business model, your brand positioning and how you generate revenue, discounting can permanently damage your business.
Before jumping in bed with the latest daily deal site or slashing prices, have you tried?
- Implementing a referral/rewards program and executing on it consistently.
- Getting your pre-book % to at least 70%, using consistent dialogue and systems.
- Training your entire team to ask clients to share their experience on YELP, and ensure they are doing it consistently.
- Ensuring your team is delivering a quality experience, consistently.
- Working with each team member individually to devise a plan for how they are going to grow their business including referrals, pre-booking, upgrading (only with the clients true needs are in mind), and recommending the products necessary for clients to care for their hair at home.
- Getting serious about a social strategy; content creation, curation, consistent engagement which is proven to increase word of mouth if done well.
- Committing to an email marketing strategy, consistently, which delivers value as well as calls to action.
- Committing to a consistent promotional strategy, with a focus on adding value.
- Creating a system for client check in’s via the phone to see how their experience was.
- Creating a system to connect with clients who have not been back in a while. You can learn a ton and most likely will get some of your clients back into the salon.
- Auditing your salon experience. Are you delivering more value than the price you are charging? Is your pricing strategy consistent with your brand?
- Taking a look at supply/demand. Do you really need more hairdressers if you don’t have more clients?
- Taking a look at your retention rate. How many new clients are you seeing? More importantly, how many are you actually keeping?
All of the above actions will contribute to long term, sustainable, healthy growth.
Daily deals and excessive discounting will contribute to short-term sales, brand erosion and unsustainable growth.
Your choice. Choose wisely.
Love + Awesomeness-
Nina
About Nina L. Kovner: From the shampoo room to the boardroom, Nina L. Kovner took the world of pro beauty by storm with her thoughtful attention to detail and never-ending tenacity. After 26 years of conquering obstacles in an ever-changing business landscape and helping to build one of the most recognized professional haircare brands in the world, she respectfully walked away from a career at the top to help small business owners and artists discover and live their purpose with passion and empower their businesses. Now, as Chief Awesomeness Empowerer at Passion Squared, she wakes up every morning saying to herself… “How I am going to help people create awesome today?”
About Passion Squared: WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? Everything. Awesome creative small business owners and the people who work in them are created from the inside out and we work to empower your life and business with a focus on online + offline marketing, strategy and brand development with a heavy dose of personal development awesome dust sprinkled onto every thing we do. You can find Nina all over the social + digital web when she’s not drinking espresso or spooning her dogs…Connect with her at passionsquared, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat (@passionsquared) and Youtube.