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Style Magazine

Marketing with Coupons

Jun 10, 2013 10:03AM ● By Style

Reach, Engagement and Message.

Coupons are here to stay and for those businesses that choose to use them, understanding their use and impact is important. Here are 3 important ideas to consider when offering coupons.

#1 - Coupons should MOTIVATE a consumer to come to you.

This is why it’s very important to reach the consumer early in the process and not when they are already walking through your door. For example: A customer receives their mail and finds a coupon that interests them. The coupon saves them $$$ on a product they might consider trying but more importantly, something that motivates them to come to your business. The key to this is to reach the consumer early on and use the coupon to drive them to your business.

#2 - Coupons should be used in an intelligent manner by the business.

They should motivate the consumer to try something new or to steer them towards a particular sect of your business. Let’s take for example, Restaurant Q is typically busy most evenings and has a great reputation for a place to have dinner but their problem is, their lunch business is slow – what’s a business to do? If they choose to 'Market with Coupons' they would look to offer specials for lunch, which will help in two ways. First, it will help the business by creating lunch customers and second is that some percentage of these new customers will likely come back and try dinner in the near future! In today’s market, when a business has a chance to CLOSE, to make a new customer one that returns is absolutely critical.

#3 - It doesn’t take a smart person to figure out what makes a coupon work, people love to save money.

With that said, here are the three elements of a good coupon campaign are as follows:

  • Reach – The more you put out there, the bigger the number that will be used.

  • Size – You only have the consumer’s attention for a short time, make your offer simple and as big as you possibly can since, in this regards, size DOES matter!

  • Offer – Great offers get great responses. Good offers get good response. Lousy or hard to understand offers get bad responses – KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Remember, first and foremost, the offer should work to grow and enhance your business. It should motivate the consumer to walk through your establishment’s door rather than another’s. The most important factor is it needs to reach them at a point when you still have the chance to sway them. 

Would you ever consider handing a customer a coupon as they are walking through your door? Probably not… This is why Mailing works. It reaches the customer at home and creates a need for them to try your business and that right there is the real goal of coupons.

Why don't all media businesses send coupons by mail? The answer is simple - its expensive but those that do mail understand that it’s what works best for their clients.

Style Savings Guide mails to 40,000 homes and apartments each month in Folsom and El Dorado Hills – why? Because it is the single best form of delivery and produces the best Return On Investment!

"When business is good, advertise; when business is slow, you must advertise!" Harvard Business School