Deal sites sound like a good platform especially if you’re desperate and impatient to sell your concert tickets.
But before you sign-up and create a deal, make sure you read the pros and cons of selling tickets through deal sites.
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PROS
It attracts a lot of consumers. You can reach new customers by appealing to those who are looking for inexpensive deals and a chance to save money. You get to charge lower prices to new customers who aren’t willing to pay more.
Venue owner will love you for it. The venue splits the $$ from the Groupon sales with Groupon. It helps get a few hundred extra drinkers into the room and the band ends up with more people to sell their merchandise to.
Deal sites gives people a sense of urgency.
Direct admission. G-Pass™ tickets from Groupon grant you direct admission to some of your favorite live entertainment events.
It gives a better word of mouth to some bands who have poor marketing.
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CONS
Huge price cuts. Groupon keeps 50% of all voucher sales that it obtains for its clients. Thus, business owners generally earn only 25% of what they’d normally make an any sale generated through a daily deal website. Let’s say I’m a business offering a $40 Groupon to customers for $20. I don’t even get $20, I get $14 after Groupon takes their cut.
Your site won’t benefit from it. Sure you get the foot traffic to your physical storefront but your website doesn’t get the bump in online traffic it normally does through traditional web based ad campaigns.
It might help big bands, but it could put small bands to shame. The problem is, you really can’t tell if you’re on the big side or the small side. So you take the chance. You think “hey, it’s free. What have we got to lose?” Think again. Of course you have something to lose- your reputation. If only 12 people buy your deal and you’ve been promoting it through Facebook, people will look down on you and your confidence will be crushed.
Deals hurt your image. One negative aspect of daily deal sites is that price promotions usually hurt the image of the company offering it, says Dholakia. By discounting the price your brand becomes susceptible to a reduction in perceived value by the customer. People would automatically think you’re not that good (or losing your career) because why else would you be offering 50% discount on your tickets?
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What some artists have to say about deal sites:
I think offering a Groupon is lazy. No seriously, it’s lazy. You want to bring in new people? You want to get more business? Then stop focusing on these bargain shoppers; instead focus on YOUR CUSTOMERS!
Yet not all performing arts organizations here are convinced the Groupon model will benefit them in the long term, or serve as a good marketing tool in general.
“I can see how it works for really large organizations but I am not sure it will work for small companies like us,” says Attack Theatre’s marketing director Rebecca Himberger. “The return on investment seems to be really small.”
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SUGGESTIONS:
If you really want to use deal sites, make sure you’re willing to “buy” the remaining tickets needed for a deal to be sold-out. If not, your reputation would seriously suffer.
If you really want to use deal sites, don’t focus on the profit you can get from ticket sales because you’ll only be disappointed. Focus on how you can get cash from your merch. And you make sure you have a splendid performance and get all of their e-mails to make-up for your tainted image for joining a deal site.
If you are willing to offer 50% off anyway, why not offer it to your customers as a reward or just a freebie? This way, your fans will love you more and they would not think you are cheap- just kind and fun. And this way, you won’t be giving any deal site any money.
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Have you tried selling tickets or merch using deal sites? How did it go?
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