I received this offer via Groupon today:

http://www.groupon.com/baltimore/

A one-year membership to the B&O Railroad Museum for half-priced $30, or a family membership for half-priced $50. Basically the price of two admissions, or not much more than a joint ticket to Ellicott City and the Roundhouse. And they're unveiling an exhibit on the B&O in the Civil War soon.

If you're interested, you have until Wednesday night.

Has any operation represented here tried such promotions, with Groupon or other such marketing sites, circulars, etc.? Care to report on your experiences, pro or con?

ADM, while I don't have any personal experience with it, I do have some first-hand reports from some portrait photographers who used the service.

In most cases, the response was better than they expected. Some of them had a limit on the number of coupons available, others did not and sold more than they expected.

As with all coupons, you can expect a fair amount of people who purchase the coupons and never use them. However, apparently quite a few folks do use them, and it can end up being quite a load for a small business.

The best approach seems to be offering a minimal package and hoping folks will purchase more. In photography, that is usually a free portrait session and one 8" x 10" at no charge. You of course hope folks will purchase more photos. Reports are that many folks do, and in fact one person reported that the clients seemed to either go really cheap "No, I only want my 8" x 10", or really upscale, going for some of the best sales she'd had.

How you'd translate this to railroads, I'm not certain? 2 for one fares maybe, and hope they spend extra in the gift shop?

Whoa, they've sold 276 family memberships and 8 individual memberships at this point.

Update @ 3/16 10:14pm Baltimore time: 370 family and 9 individuals (total).

I've yet to work with Groupon, but I've done alot of these deals with the local media. The Half off campaigns are done in exchange for free commercials, interviews, etc...

It works really well when you have alot of capacity and can afford giving away a certain amount of seats per event.

This has allowed me to really cut back on my marketing budget, which has helped us survive the past few years.

Find a book called "Guerilla Marketing" from the '80s and mentally update the strategies in it to exploit modern electronic media. many worthwhile and low cost techniques about creating win-win partnerships with other business are included.

dave

I was given that very book by someone at SMRS back in the 80's. But I believe they updated it.

There's another version just for the internet but I'm sure it's stale.