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RFP

Questions to ask when selecting a daily deal partner

Alisa Cromer
Posted

Selecting a software partner is a complex process - and is often subverted in favor of whomever is the "known quantity." The best choices, however, come from comparing several companies against a variety of criteria. Here is a list of RFP questions for daily deal companies that can simplify the task.

1. Is the program co-branded (ie part of a larger national coupon site) or will it appear as a white label brand? (This question generally excludes Groupon as a partner, since it does not offer a white label; Living Social now does, as well as most other vendors).

2. Who owns the email list?

3. Is the program hosted as SaaS or run by the media company's IT group?

4. What other companies are using this service, are there any newspaper/broadcast sites?

5. How is it similar or different to the Groupon model?

6. How does business model work? Typically software companies take around 6% of revenues from voucher sales; and after credit card fees this adds up to around 10% off of the top.

7. Who sells the clients?

8. What kind of support do you provide? This is the most important question; we have heard some complaints from media companies about this area - check references! What do they provide to the partner in terms of training, ongoing support, maintenance. Is there live customer service for consumers buying vouchers? Is there live customer support for the media company during business hours?

9. Who "sets up" the deals every day? Scheduling/setup is key.  Who will be the gatekeeper to keep out the bad deals?

The key to this is distinguish which ones are turnkey when media adds their sales team and which ones require someone to play product manager/producer to keep the program running at optimal efficiency day to day.

10. What do you consider your unique value proposition?  Are there levels of permissions?

11. Does your software provide mobile apps on specific devices for partners to use/distribute.

12. Will they bring any ad networks do they bring to the equation? Consider that GAP and others want to do a deal 1x and get it in many markets. Publishers may want to plug into a national network rather than go it alone as a silo in their local area and be left out of the national deals that come along.

13. What tracking tools does their system provide to retailers (customers) to track new customers from the offers (spreadsheet with all names on it? Website login? Phone system? Point of Sale/bar code integration?) As one interactive director puts it: "A big complaint about Groupon is that they sell 3000 vouchers in 1 day and then give the business owner a spreadsheet print out of 3000 names and coupon ID #s on it and say 'good luck'. Makes it pretty hard to handle all the coupons that come in and making sure they are not being used more than 1x at many locations."

14. Who is on their management/executive team and how are they positioned to win the long battle in a very competitive marketplace?

15. What types of additional products are on the roadmap (customer loyalty programs should be on this list).

Many thanks to Mark Roth, Director of Interactive Product Development
Sun-Times Media for help reviewing and further developing this list.

Alisa Cromer

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.

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