Great post, Peter. Before doing any promotion, we need to really examine our marketing objective first: are we looking to acquire new customers, just get rid of overstocked inventory (as in your example above), get more word of mouth, increase spend of current customers, etc? We have to answer this question first before we start planning a promotion. These days, promotions get spread virally online and have the probably of attracting unwanted "bad customers," creating unnecessary headache and hassle. Maybe a promotion is not the best tactic and there is another program that could be created. For example, the objective of getting rid of overstock inventory could have been done differently than just offering the inventory as part of a mass gift with purchase (GWP). This GWP attracted a bunch of deal seekers, not your core customer who would purchase again. If you really just needed to get rid of the product, why not add a free product to every order coming in until they were gone? Add a note on the receipt/invoice saying "thanks for being a great customer! Please accept this as our gift." Customers are surprised and delighted at getting something free and who knows what positive word of mouth and referrals could have been generated, as well as repeat purchases. As for the Groupon example you mention, I know businesses that have used Groupon effectively without the problems of this one example. Again, going into a Groupon promotion, one has to look at the objective as a marketing expense to get new customers in the door. Some naysayers look at it as losing money on a transaction, but that is the wrong view. Also, not to knock this woman's story about Groupon, but I'm thinking that tracking and redeeming a Groupon promotion without owning a computer is not a #winning combination : )

Trevor, Thanks for the kind words about our book : ) I'm *guessing* that Coca-Cola would not be as dismissive today as they were back then. But we have not seen alot of external evidence that they understand or participate in what's going on online. Even their director of digital has updated his Twitter account in almost 2 months :) http://twitter.com/adamcb

Thanks for the mention! And the feedback : )