Promotions That Promote and Promotions That Don’t

by Aryeh Powers

I recently received 2 different promotional offerings in my eMail inbox. The first promotion was a $5.00 credit for me to use on my next Groupon purchase. Although it was nice and thoughtful of Groupon to offer me that credit, and I’m very happy with a free $5.00 credit, when I received the email, my initial thought was, why are they offering me a discount when regardless of the promotion their Web site is dedicated to getting me the best deals on products and services in my area, anyway. With this thought in mind the only reason that I could think of for why Groupon would present me with this promotion was because they were not bringing in the sales numbers that they were looking for and in an effort to boost those sales figures, they figured they’d give me a freebie.

 

Although this is a good sales technique and I’m sure others who received this credit, used it to Groupon’s advantage, I believe that the Groupon brand might have been better off with a stronger incentive centered on building their brand, like a promotion to give a $5.00 credit to customers that get a friend to sign up with Groupon (this might have been a promotion that was offered in the past).

In addition to the Groupon credit that I received I also received a promotion for a free month of Linkedin Premium.

 

From a branding perspective I think that the LinkedIn promotion which you can see above was exactly the kind of promotion that Linkedin should have offered to promote the Linkedin Premuium product and here’s why: Linkedin does not lose any potential revenue by offering the Linkedin Premium account to users for a free month, and the message of the promotion that resonates with consumers like myself is this: “We feel that our product is so useful and convenient for consumers, that we want you to test it out and see for yourself, before committing to a subscription”. I believe that the free upgrade promotion is also another way to reach the consumer and give potential customers another reminder of the confidence that LinkedIn places in their products.

If a brand is taking a revenue loss and diluting their brand through its promotion, that brand may produce higher short term sales figures, the promotion will do very little to strengthen, if not to damage ,the overall brand image. However, if the promotional product that is being offered either: 1. Does not detract from existing revenue streams, or 2. Is more of a service oriented promotion (e.g. we will give you free service for a month), then these promotions will serve as a sign of the product or service’s strength and serves as a display of the company confidence backing that product or service.

Tags: groupon, linkedin, promotion, promotions

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