Groupon or Direct Mail to Generate More Sales for Your Jewelry Business?

Not that long ago, Groupon was the hot new thing in promotions. It’s an opportunity to send out a coupon or special offer for free into hundreds or thousands of e-mails in the area around your business, in the hopes of generating some new business and new customers. This was meant to be the free-of-charge replacement to direct mail offers.

Doing the Math

But in the last 18 months or so, Groupon has suffered mightily in terms of keeping clients and offers flowing. Why? Well, it turns out that many businesses are doing the math and finding out for themselves (with some exceptions) that direct mail – while having some significant up-front costs – is actually giving companies better ROI when looking at the revenue generated by hitting the target audience of new customers and leaving out returning customers.

Things to Consider

When you consider that all revenue generated from the direct-mail coupon goes to your business, and the same offer is split 50-50 with Groupon (and will likely hit some of your regular customers), and you consider the possible repeat business from the new customers, the revenue brought in from a direct mail offer could be four to five times greater than what may be found from Groupon. We encourage you to do your own numbers, as they can, of course, vary.

What About Both?

It may be possible to do both. But if you only have the budget to for one, look at the return more than the money invested. You may not pay up-front for a Groupon, but the amount of money that goes to Groupon as part of the offer may very well come out to be higher than your direct mail option.

Have a calculator handy and think it through. Groupon may be free, but if it seems too good to be true …