Resourceful Marketing: The Power of Coupons

As a marketing method, coupons are often misunderstood. Consequently, many businesses that could benefit from using coupons omit them from their marketing strategy.

Advertisers don’t quite understand:

what a coupon marketing strategy is all about; and

what constitutes success in coupon marketing.

This first article in a two-part series addresses the first point.

What’s a coupon?

Usually paper-based, a coupon extends a specific benefit to potential customers when they present the coupon to the business that initiated the offer.

Coupon Marketing Strategy

If you are resourceful, a big benefit of a coupon marketing strategy is its very low cost. The strategy consists of the following.

Printing method for the coupons

Method of distribution

The specific offer contained in the coupon(s)

The coupons’ support of the firm’s overall marketing strategy

The measurement process that determines the level of success

Printing

The low-cost way to print coupons is to use equipment you already have. For a fraction of a penny each, you can design and print a coupon with most word-processing programs. After you set up a standard template, simply insert your current offer into the basic coupon.

Another approach is to have a printing company design and print a blank template, using coloured ink. Create a coupon template on your computer, type in your specific offer, then photocopy the information onto the pre-printed coupons. If you don’t have a photocopier, find a business offering that service.

Colour helps bring attention to your offer.

Consider paper quality. It’s fine to use 20 lb. bond, but thicker or textured paper gives the coupon a different feel-and the impression of higher value.

Size is important. While the coupon must be large enough to present your offer and motivate a person to respond, it must not be crowded or look chintzy. It must be a convenient size. A half-sheet of paper is too difficult to conveniently place in a wallet or purse. If you need that much space to explain the offer and motivate the customer, print the information above a small coupon; the customer can detach the coupon when ready to shop.

Distribution

Our focus is to help you distribute the coupons as inexpensively as possible-hopefully for free!

The resourceful business understands there are two primary methods of distribution: do it yourself or have someone else do it for you. You could spend a great deal of money distributing coupons: print them in a newspaper or magazine, insert them into publications, mail them via Canada Post, or hire a marketing service that specializes in distributing coupons.

In-House Marketing

The easiest method is the most cost-effective. Customers are in your department every day. Simply give them a coupon when they enter, to motivate them to purchase what you are offering-or as they are leaving, offer a coupon to be applied to their next-visit purchase. Either way, your distribution cost is free.

Customer Marketing

The really resourceful business gets someone else to want to distribute its coupons. Your present customers will pass along more than your coupon-they will pass along an implied referral. Set up the offer so your current customers also receive a benefit from distributing the coupon. If people value your level of service, your current customers will be quite pleased to help a friend save money with your coupon offer. A referral is the best possible form of advertising.

Allied-Business Marketing

It’s possible to have other businesses distribute your coupons to their customers. The best source of these businesses is the list of your accounts receivable and payable. Firms with whom you are doing business have an interest in your success. Helping you has a self-serving interest for them. If you do better, so will they.

Approach other firms with a customer base you would like to attract. Those firms can insert your coupons into their invoice or statement mailings. Or they could offer your coupons to their customers when they make a purchase.

Having another business distribute your coupons has two significant gains.

1. It exposes you to a whole new customer base.

2. There is an inherent referral from that business to yours. Would you distribute a coupon for another business if you did not have complete confidence that business would look after your customers?

The Internet

Ask your customers for their email addresses, then distribute electronic coupons to them for no cost, after the basic design work. And ask other firms to distribute your electronic coupon. They can add it to electronic correspondence they are sending out, or they may do a mass emailing to their customer list for you.

About Results Consulting Group Inc.

Results is an international full-service business consulting company with special expertise and experience in the automotive industry. In the past five years alone, Results’ team of a utomotive professionals has trained more than 20,000 automotive personnel-and logged thousands of in-store consulting-project days, from independent operations to national and international chains.

Senior Partners Ken Keis and Gordon Cameron have over 45 years of combined business-ownership experience and 15,000 hours of automotive consulting experience.

The Results Performance Institute provides a full range of information products and services designed to increase your business and individual performance, including personal one-on-one coaching, in-store consulting, on- and off-site educational sessions, tele-conferences, videos, and audio solutions. Results also provides appointment-scheduling and dispatch software solutions-ServiceMate-specifically designed for the independent maintenance and repair sector. Results’ copyrighted service marketing and operational system, “0% Customer Defection & 100% Customer Retention,” has a proven track record of increasing service gross by 10-20% and beyond-in less than six months.

For further information about Results and its automotive and business solutions, call us Toll Free at 1-866-852-4347, email results@shaw.ca, or visit our Website at www.resultsconsultinggroup.com.