Why Groupon Inspired Email Marketing Makes the Phone Ring Instantly

There's a lot of chatter out there about the need to get back to "high touch, high trust" selling when it comes down to retaining customers for our small businesses.  And for the record, I'm all about the relationship based long term client, but there's no denying that the internet has very much changed the consumer's buying behavioral patterns.  Would you agree?

So when coaching clients on ways to get the quickest return on invest (ROI) from their email broadcasts, I simply ask them WWGD?  That's "What Would Groupon Do?" for those folks that are thinking about ways to make their email blasts produce instant sales from their ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) consumer base. 

It's not that consumers are really ADD.  It's that we as a culture have evolved into an instant gratification purchasing pattern that is nurtured by the Groupon, Living Social vendors.  So why not meet those customers on that level, rather than try to ask them to re-learn traditional spending methods?  Proof it works?  I've now executed over 300 e-mail campaigns in the last 24 months for just a hand full of these more progressive thinking clients.  Their average click through rates are 36% or higher and have they generated over $2M in new sales JUST using this method. 

If over 80% of your Groupon customers are just looking for the next deal why not  simply embrace becoming the business to give it to them?  In my opinion, if you don't, your competition just might.  Thoughts?