Shane Rhyne

I am fortunate in my work that I have the opportunity to talk to the media on a regular basis about a variety of topics that are of interest to me. Most recently, these topics have focused on how businesses and consumers both can use digital media to their benefit.

For instance, today I am included in a Carly Harrington column in the Knoxville News Sentinel about fatigue among shoppers and businesses with daily deal services such as Groupon, LivingSocial, etc.

I was happy to admit to Carly that, as a consumer, I do use the site (although not as frequently as I did when they first arrived in my market area) and find them to be valuable to me for saving money. I’ve grown especially fond of using Groupon for travel planning. However, when I put on my business hat I also have to admit that I don’t recommend them as a regular tactic for my clients.

It’s not that the coupons don’t work as good traffic generators. In fact, they can work quite well. Yet, the smaller businesses I work with (and the ones who are most interested in the service) don’t have a good infrastructure in place for capturing these customers (email subscriptions, newsletters, loyalty programs, etc.) to make sure they are nothing more than one-time 75%-off customers. I advise my clients to first invest in a good customer management system and then they can consider how a daily deal coupon fits within that overall strategy.

I’ve discussed some of these concerns about the need for a daily deal strategy for small businesses before. It’s something I plan to blog about a bit more this month over at the Ackermann Experience.

What about you? Do you find yourself suffering from daily deal fatigue as a customer? As a business owner, do you have concerns about the tactic or ideas for making best use of the services? Feel free to jump in and share your thoughts.