Are Indy Businesses using Daily Deals with Groupon and Living Social?

Are Groupon, Living Social, and other large scale daily deals sites losing their grip on local deals, or are we watching their focus shift to larger corporate destinations, choosing volume over diversity?

Daily deals sites came out with a bang a few years ago, taking saving money mobile and using their large social standing to bring attention to businesses with huge short term deals. Many small business found themselves in the spotlight after offering 90% off deals to gain social visibility, only to find that most customers that used their service never came to visit a second time. This is the curse of the big daily deals sites.

I watch similar sites and have noticed a shift to a focus on spas, weight loss, and other corporate services offered nationally, and advertised as local deals. These are not true local deals, these are a sham. Local is local.

Offering daily deals is like selling cars. I am sure we have all seen Andy Mohr, Ray Skillman, and Don Hinds all over out local tv stations, hustling cars like cattle at an auction. Auto sales marketing is the most aggressive and competitive advertising in the world, and we are blessed here in Indy to have 3 of the finest examples. Each dealer honestly owns the car for the exact same amount. Their advertising is solely based on getting you in the door, no matter what. Hence the fine print. The same can be said for Daily Deals.

Daily deals advertising was a wonderful tool for a short while, but many retailers are finding that easy to use, simple coupon sites are where the return business is coming from. Smaller deals with everyday availability are coming back. As a kid I remember my mom collecting the green stamps at the local A&P to save a few dollars. America is back in a place where saving money is cool, and paying too much for goods and services is no longer envied, but judged.

There are so many new and exciting tools to help boost small businesses that making sense of it all is really more of an art than a science. Indy MarketPlcae is trying to bring all of these tools together in one place, but we have run into a brick wall. We offer daily deal coupons for free with Deals4Indy, every day coupons at Indy Deals Coupons, and even offer Yelp style listing right here at Indy MarketPlace. All of our services are free, yet they are under utilized by our local businesses. So we are reaching out to our friends to help solve this problem and find out what we can do to become relevant to Indy Business.

Please comment and share what you think.

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Would you rent a home for up to $10000/wk?

We here at Indy MarketPlace own a Super Bowl Rental site. Having spent no money on marketing for it, we understand why nobody has listed with it. It is a failure of a site, thrown up in haste with no real effort put in to promoting it. While it is lacking in popularity, it does still offer many of the same features of the less than local sites that plaster our roadways with signs promising up to $10000 for a weekly rental.

We wanted to know If you would pay that much?

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Deals 4 Indy offers a spot for retailers to offer cheap daily coupon deals in Indianapolis

Indianapolis, In

Indy MarketPlace and Deals 4 Indy offer a variety of services for free to Indianapolis business owners. Deals 4 Indy is a paid service, similar to Groupon, but much cheaper. Indy Businesses can use Deals 4 Indy for unlimited coupons with a free listing and coupon service at Indy MarketPlace. Groupon and Living Social can charge as much as $500 and take %50 of the sales. Deals 4 Indy will NOT charge an annual fee and offer unlimited coupons for only 14 percent of the sales.

Please contact us and ask about the Indy Business Advantage plan.

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Indy Deals Coupons offers Free Coupons for Indy Businesses

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Starting a Business in Indianapolis! Deals 4 Indy offers more for less

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Super Bowl Rentals can help homeowners make money during Super Bowl

With only a few months left until crowds of tourist hit Indianapolis to cheer on their favorite team during the Super Bowl, many homeowners are foaming at the mouth to take advantage of freely spent tourist dollars.

During the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, you can expect all of the hotels to be booked full. While many people will stay only for a few days, the real money is made on the corporations looking to house crews of PR and Media employees.

A small 3 bedroom within walking distance of Downtown Indianapolis can be worth thousands per day. Imagine making $10000 in one week. While it is not the norm, it is certainly possible. Many local Indy Homes can be rented for hudreds and even thousands a night during the Super Bowl Week in Indianapolis, but many will find it much too financially risky to attempt it.

SuperBowlRent.com offers those that are leery of the outsiders and fly by night companies offering their Super Bowl Rental site services for hundreds of dollars. SuperBowlRent.com offers many of the same services for only $39. Even though it is discounted to $39, SuperBowlRent.com services match the size and scale of the expensive competitors.

As a local service, Super Bowl Rentals can be reached day or night for questions and service. Please feel free to check them out at http://superbowlrent.com

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Haunted Houses in Indianapolis

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Indy Business Directory aligns with Indianapolis Coupon Deals site

Indianapolis, In

A new website created with a focus on Indianapolis Business and Commerce in mind has joined forces with a Coupons for Indy site featuring Indianapolis deals and coupons.

Indy Business MarketPlace has taken over operations of a local Indianapolis coupon site, Indy Deals Coupons. The combination of low cost and ease of use make Indy Deals a great tool for Indianapolis businesses to take advantage of. Many Indy retailers are fighting for a medium size market share, that seems to be fighting off the financial pains that ail other similar sized cities.

Indy Deals and Indy Business MarketPlace are also joining with a Daily Deals Coupon site for Indianapolis, Deals4Indy. Indy MarketPlace will be offering local retailers a combination of services that will cover their coupon and discount needs, offer reviews, and better yet, offer retailers a level of reputation management not offered through larger national sites. This service will be called Indy MarketPlace Advantage.

Under the Indy MarketPlace Advantage, retailers will be able to enroll in unlimited coupons through Indy Deals Coupons, be granted access to manage their company page on Indy MarketPlace with seo management and social sharing, and also receive 1 free Daily Deals coupon through Deals4Indy every quarter.

The main benefit to Indy MarketPlace Advantage is that Indy retailers are able to focus their marketing dollars locally and receive local customer support. Indy MarketPlace puts the power of social marketing in the hands of local Indianapolis businesses with little outof pocket expense, while maintaing world class support and service.

Indy MarketPlace Advantage is scheduled to launch in November of 2011. Follow Indy MarketPlace, Deals4Indy, and Indy Deals COupons on twitter for updates or contact Indy MarketPlace directly at http://indymarketplace.com

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3 things every Indianapolis business needs to do

Indianapolis consumers are fickle. We like what we like and do not venture too far out for anything. As a southsider, I cannot remember how long it has been since I have needed to go north of Washington street for anything. Before I go anywhere on the weekends,  always make a plan and then look for coupons. Unless the coupon is a great value, I will just stay close to home.

The great thing about Groupon, Living Social, and other social coupon sites, is that they are great winners for customers. I have found myself traveling as far as 35 miles to use a social coupon before it expired. I know the coupons are typically loss leaders for the owners, so I always buy something that is not covered by the coupon, but if the business didn’t offer a special deal, I would never had been there to start.

Gaining new customers is key to a business’ growth. In a tough economy, $1 is $1, and they all add up, so take advantage of free and low cost services that offer many of the same functions as the large corporate sites. While these sites do not have the same social reach as the big boys, they do serve a purpose. Here are a few tips to using these free or low cost services.

1. Create a daily coupon deal using distance as a selling point. Gaining the long distance customer is an easy way to increase your own social reach while making more money. Use a free coupon service that allows for coupon editing, like Indy Deals Coupons. They are small, and they don’t have much social reach, but they are free and easy to use.
2. Build a place where your customers can share their experience at your place of business. Facebook and Yelp are great places for this, but they are more socially focused, rather than business focused. Indy MarketPlace offers many of the same features and they offer control as well. Negative reviews can hurt the business, and most owners never get a chance to resolve the issue before it hits the internet. Most negatives reviews are found out weeks after they are posted, well after the damage has been done. Indy MarketPlace allows the listing owner the opportunity to fix a negative review before it is published. The benefit to this can change an angry customer into a true customer for life.
3. Use a Social Coupon site as it is intended. Most business owners don’t use Groupon or Living Social because, let’s face it, they are expensive. Local daily deals sites are pooping up everywhere. Many are even offering special deals that give the shop owner a free deal if they agree to us their service at least 2 other times in a year. Deals4Indy is a local site and allows a shop owner to post a different deal in upto 3 specific areas of town, and if a local business agrees to use their service 3 times in a calander year, their first coupon deal is free.

Free is good. It is even better when free pays you. Take advantage of Indy MarketPlace and their sister sites Indy Deals Coupons and Deals4Indy. They will go the extra mile to build your business. If you would like to get more information on the Indy MarketPlace Advantage feel free to drop a note on our Contact Us page.

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