ajit verghese

It is not about (daily) deals, it is about leads.

goodeatsforme:

There’s been a lot of discussions recently about the daily deals space. With Groupon’s IPO in limbo (and journalist/blogger Rocky Agrawal’s must-read series of insightful takes on the company) , Facebook and Yelp’s scaling back of their deal offers and (despite that) a spate of copycats growing everyday - everyone’s focus is on daily deals.

And I think we’re missing a much bigger opportunity.

To me, the value that daily deals sites bring to a restaurant is that they are selling restaurants a list of customer leads. The business goal of restaurants are to get as many people in as many seats as possible and deal sites provide a list of people that are willing to put themselves in those seats. Those people are leads and restaurants are paying daily deal sites a pretty for those leads. 

The problem with these leads is that they are ‘shitty’ leads. Much like the characters in the movie Glenngary Glenn Ross, merchants feel that they need to use these ‘shitty’ leads in order to get to the good leads - the Glen Ross leads! There are various motivations for running deals across different platforms - but the end goal of restaurants is to fill as many seats as possible on a consistent basis with customers - and the hope is that the customers that come into restaurants based on the deal/promotion will become (repeat) loyal customers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be the case. You cannot turn a ‘shitty’ lead into a good lead. 

But here’s the rub: you don’t need these ‘shitty’ leads - in many cases the great (Glenngarry) leads are out there - volunteered by customers and for the taking.

How so? Well - customers continue to interact with your restaurant across multiple social channels - taking pictures of your food on Foodspotting, checking in and/or leaving tips (and the occasional picture) on Foursquare, talking about your dishes, the quality of your service, recommending food and drink, or times to visit on Twitter and Facebook and a host of other actions across new and upcoming services.

And while these actions that customers are taking are important to the operation of your business - these actions help identify these customers - who are your good leads!

Why are they good leads? Well, for one thing, they know you exist and based on whatever action that they’ve taken they are either existing customers or potential customers. They have come in and engaged with your restaurant. These customers are a targeted, segmented list of individuals that you should market and promote to. 

There are lots of actions that consumers can take across multiple services - and keeping track of all those consumers can be hard. That’s where GoodEatsFor.Me comes in - we help you collect this customer activity, understand what these customers say, like and do,  and help define this customer base and give you easy ways to market towards them.

It takes time, but will generate results. And without using GoodEatsFor.Me, restaurants can achieve this  goal - although GoodEatsFor.Me really does make it easy. ;) 

Cultivating leads helps establish better relationships between your business and your customers. Better relationships provide you with an understanding of who your customers are, what they want and most importantly what they are willing to purchase. And this will help you target your efforts and ultimately evolve to a better and more efficient sales process while building up loyalty amongst your customers.

It is not about deals, it is about leads.