Cindy,
I worked at a museum that participated in both Groupon and LivingSocial promotions. The key to receiving benefit is to understanding the tradeoffs.
1. It does not benefit anyone to offer an already popular "product". For example, if you are already near capacity, running a Groupon would displace full price customers for discounted customers. The solution is to offer a product only where you have excess capacity. In the museum world, this might be shoulder seasons of January/February or September/October. You may stipulate the redemption period in the offer.
2. Many merchants who have gotten in trouble with this have done so by selling their products at less than cost, hoping that Groupon customers will buy additional product or return. This has been especially the case in the restaurant industry where the Groupon revenue does not cover labor costs or overhead. If you sell too many Groupons, then it can backfire. Anecdotally I've been given to understand that Groupon customers do not use the savings to buy additional product or convert to regular customers. One way to overcome this is to limit the total number of Groupons that will be sold during the promotion, which you can do when setting up the contract. If you do not have a capacity or overhead problem, then this is not a concern. If the Groupon revenue will cover your expenses, then there is no need to limit them.
3. Groupon stipulates that your "product" be offered at half price to make it a deal. They typically take 50%. If your normal admission is $10 per person, they will sell it for $5 and you will get $2.50. If you are early into the market, you may be able to negotiate a slightly better split as they will want to use your success to market to your "competitors", ie the museum down the street.
If you cannot at least cover expenses at a quarter of your regular price, don't do it. You really can't count on no shows to make up the difference. My museum tracked redemptions as they arrived--by customer name--in part to make sure that the certificates weren't photocopied and reused, and we did not experience a significant no show rate.
4. If you participate, then make sure you track conversions. A museum that sells memberships can track how many people purchased full price memberships the next year. My former museum had a very low percentage of repeat visitors, so we knew that the Groupon visitor would be making his one and only visit. However, by putting them through during the off season when we had excess capacity we were not incurring extra costs and might have benefitted from increased visibility and word of mouth.
In summary, you can make it work. Just make sure that you can handle the capacity without adding expense. We restricted the Groupon visitors from separately ticketed programs, for example, to maintain space for full price visitors and to not use up materials that had an associated cost.
It was our experience that the typical Groupon buyer had not ever planned to visit us, due to the admission price, and it was only the discount that lured them in. Therefore, we learned--through point of sale surveys--that we were not exchanging current discounted visitors for future full price visitors. This, combined with our low per visitor operating costs, made it a worthwhile investment.
Good luck with your promotion,
Liz Maurer
On Jun 21, 2011, at 1:37 PM, "Cindy Boyer" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Interesting article.
>
>
>
> I always thought that part of the way businesses survive these offers is there’s always someone who buys them and does not redeem them. I know I have a few sitting in my account at Groupon and LivingSocial. I don’t know how common that is – but I assume that if the deal is sold, the business gets their share whether or not it is redeemed.
>
>
>
> And I do know that people buy tickets to our events and we always have a number of paid no-shows.
>
>
>
> Cindy Boyer
>
> Director of Museums and Education
>
> The Landmark Society of Western New York
>
> 133 S. Fitzhugh St.
>
> Rochester NY 14608
>
> (585) 546-7029 ext. 12
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Fax: (585) 546-4788
>
>
>
> The Landmark Society: Revitalizing Yesterday, Protecting Today, and Planning for Tomorrow
>
>
>
> www.landmarksociety.org
>
> Confessions of a Preservationist: The Landmark Society blog
>
> Facebook / MySpace
>
>
>
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joel Williams
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 1:18 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Does your institution participate in Groupon
>
>
>
> Here's an article I read recently about Groupon, definitely makes me think twice before even getting coupons via their service, much less marketing with them:
>
>
>
> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/13/why-groupon-is-poised-for-collapse/
>
>
>
> I think it can work (as Steph said) but you should be very cautious and weigh the possibilities first.
>
>
>
> Joel Williams
>
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Steph Gaub <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> We recently ran a promotion on our membership through Groupon. We sold over 345 memberships during the one day promotion. Our development department was thrilled! Now the challenge is to retain the memberships once they expire.
>
>
>
> Stephanie Gaub Antequino
> Collections Manager
> Orange County Regional History Center
> 65 East Central Boulevard
> Orlando, FL 32801
> Tel: 407.836.8587 Fax: 407.836.8550
> www.thehistorycenter.org
> Smart. Surprising. Fun.
>
>
>
> Games People Play: The Evolution of Video Games
>
> A History Center 10th Anniversary Exhibit
>
> July 2-September 10, 2011
>
> An interactive history of electronic games, from pinball machine to motion-sensor console.
>
>
>
> --- On Tue, 6/21/11, Cindy Boyer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> From: Cindy Boyer <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Does your institution participate in Groupon
>
>
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Date: Tuesday, June 21, 2011, 11:10 AM
>
>
>
> Are any of you participating in any of the online coupon offers such as Groupon or LivingSocial?
>
>
>
> We keep getting marketing emails to participate. I am wondering if a deeply discounted membership offer might work – our events have such limited ticket availability that I would hate to have to earmark part of my ticket inventory for the program.
>
>
> Would love to hear about any experiences, the pro’s and con’s. Thanks!
>
>
>
> Cindy Boyer
>
> Director of Museums and Education
>
> The Landmark Society of Western New York
>
> 133 S. Fitzhugh St.
>
> Rochester NY 14608
>
> (585) 546-7029 ext. 12
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Fax: (585) 546-4788
>
>
>
> The Landmark Society: Revitalizing Yesterday, Protecting Today, and Planning for Tomorrow
>
>
>
> www.landmarksociety.org
>
> Confessions of a Preservationist: The Landmark Society blog
>
> Facebook / MySpace
>
>
>
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cass Karl
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 9:52 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Salary Information Study
>
>
>
> I seem to remember that several years ago someone (maybe AAM or AASLH) did a study of average salaries for various museum jobs. Does anyone know where I can access that information? Thanks.
>
> -Casandra
>
>
>
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