Do you offer coupons as an incentive for customers to buy from you? Especially in a down economy, coupons can be an excellent tool in any loyalty program or rewards program for a small business or entrepreneur. The important question you should be asking is how are your customers receiving those coupons from you?
More research is coming to light that indicates HOW you deliver coupons to your customers can be equally as critical to WHAT is actually on the coupon - and email is playing a big role. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article and as reported on Taming The Beast blog, consider the following nuggets of information:
–Coupon usage has surged 10 percent recently (most likely due to the recession).
–Online coupon redemptions increased 140 percent in last year alone.
–Coupons.com says users printed out online coupons valued at $300 million last year, up 140 percent from 2007.
With the increase in email marketing and online marketing, more people are taking advantage of coupons they sign up for and receive through email or even via their mobile phones. Special applications are currently being developed for the iPhone that will let people download coupons from businesses based on proximity to a certain location.
Also consider that you can beef up all your email marketing and online marketing efforts by offering coupons via email. When people go to your blog or Web site to sign up to receive coupons you’re able to capture their email address and information for future email marketing campaigns. To jazz it up even more consider developing a custom landing page as a destination where the email directs a person to download the coupon. This way you can customize and target specific demographics and seasonal campaigns.
Other resources:
How have you used email to deliver coupons for your small business?
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We provide email marketing services for restaurants with attached coupons across the US and Canada. Many of the restaurants offer coupons exclusive to their email club members. Several have offered significant discount promotions or customer appreciation days that have delivered great results. Their customers a very appreciative of the offers which has lead to increased loyalty and referals to friends.
Thanks, Dave. Offering coupons that are exclusive to email club members is a great way to drive loyalty and build up your email list since it provides a nice incentive to be a part of the email distribution. Thanks for the points.
For a customer to signup for Email Club of the Restaurant or to follow them on twitter or become a fan on Facebook, there almost always needs to be some bait (read as coupon or discount). Otherwise, the purpose of joining the restaurants online community is meaningless.
Twitter is becoming a new way of delivering instant coupons almost on daily basis. With Twitter and Facebook, you can better engage with the customer by conducting trivia, lucky draws etc.
Email & Mobile Marketing still has its place, but is no longer the sole player in the Marketing space for restaurants. They are however completing solutions for the never ending quest to grab and retain customers.
Great points. We’re always a fan of the integrated approach when you tie together all of your marketing efforts so that they all work together.