Blue Gypsy Inc. Blog

So many "Daily Deal" sites are cropping up these days and one has to ask, how much of a deal are they really? It's hard not to blink at a deal for a luxury hotel offering 70% off on a 3 day trip, or special deals on tubing, water sports etc, not to mention the facials and more.

On some items it's easy to know that the deal is genuine. $50 worth of flowers for $25. Easy.

I tend to look at travel. Always trying to find inexpensive ways to escape, even if it's just for the weekend. But more and more I think we need to ask ourselves, if it sounds too good to be true, maybe it is. I've been looking at a deal for a Wellness Spa in Mexico. They advertise Yoga, Tai Chi, Meditation, Massage services, spa services and more... They tell you that if you purchase the daily deal you will get a 70% discount on the package...

But upon closer scrutiny, there are no rates on their website. They could tell you the rates are anything they want. In this day and age of shopping online, if you are offering certain products and services your rates should be clearly spelled out online. There are definitely exceptions to this rule. If your services are customized, if the scope of work determines your pricing, or if each quote depends on unique circumstances then by all means don't list a rate on your website.

But I'd say that if you are a hotel you're going to get better booking turnover if you have your rates, especially for packages, listed online.

As I dig deeper into this "Deal" I find that if I were to "Book directly through them" I would receive all the wellness activities: i.e. Tai Chi, Yoga, Meditation and other things as part of the booking. But on the Daily Deal site, this is not the case. Instead each class is about $45 per class. If you were to take 3 of these activities a day, all of a sudden you are increasing the cost of the trip by double....hmmm not such a deal anymore.

Now if you were going to this hotel to simply sit by the pool, then no problem. However there are daily deals for all inclusive resorts that are great for sitting on the beach or by the pool and don't hype themselves as a Wellness Resort and Retreat. In that case you are getting 50% off their true value. But if your reason for going to a Wellness Retreat is for....uh....wellness services, then this no longer looks like a good deal.

Okay end of rant. Buyers beware.

I find it ironic that a large part of my business is helping other companies with social networking as part of their lead management and interactions.

I currently teach companies how to target their message while not selling. Socialize, while not bombarding people with their product through social networking tools. I help companies search out groups and followers that will be the right place to interact with on the web. I write and or edit blogs for targeted markets, and I even do some twitter and facebook updating for certain clients. I create and send eblasts as well. Generally I help people come up with a plan to interact, and then a follow up plan for when people begin to communicate.

I evaluate websites and help companies see they need more calls to action, more ways to interact with traffic they drive to their site, and more ways to drive traffic to their site.

Yet when it comes time to do all this for my own company, I tend to allow it to fall by the wayside. It's a case of the shoemaker's children having no shoes. I'm on facebook, twitter, linkedIn and wordpress all day long for clients. I'm in Vertical Response, Constant Contact, and Buildtopia all day long. I work with an amazing team to help build economical websites for small and new businesses.

And yet I haven't updated my own website in over a year, I barely tweet, I haven't sent out an eblast for Blue Gypsy Inc. in ages nor updated the business page, and I've got writers block when it comes to blogging.

I need to hire a company like Blue Gypsy Inc.

The irony.