Marketing With Coupons To Have a Double Impact for Quad State Businesses in 2014

As a business owner and as a customer, we all have our own attitudes about coupons. We know that some businesses cannot seem to exist without coupons and some never use the things.

In various sources, including a Harvard Business Review treatment of the subject, researchers have found that merchants could relax any negative attitude merchants may have towards coupons.

It seems that coupons can provide both retail, and some other business types, a double bonus with both the coupons that are redeemed and with those that are not redeemed.

According to the most recent and most complete figures that were analyzed, customers redeemed 3.3 billion coupons in 2010. A considerable number redeemed for sure.

All those coupons, as to dollars saved, represented right at $3.7 billion from regular purchase prices. Exact figures on the dollars-saved amount cannot be figured precisely as some coupons represented percentages.

However, those figures represent only about 1% of the total number of coupons actually manufactured. So is the remaining 99% a big waste?

Hold on. New research seems to suggest that unredeemed coupons are 'highly valuable' and, amazingly, the research says that coupons that end up in the trash ultimately deliver 'greater returns than the coupons that are redeemed' to quote one study.

Trashed Coupons Build Brands—Huh?

In a fascinating experiment that would tickle any marketer's fancy, eight national retailers' coupon campaigns were analyzed. The study involved more than 500,000 specifically-targeted coupons. Those targeted coupons represented over 300 brands. The coupons were mailed out over 16 months.

The research found that those 'consumers' who received the coupons but did NOT redeem them (aka non-redeemers) actually INCREASED their purchases in the sending stores.

The non-redeemers' activity was actually followed and logged. The coupon non-redeemers [again, non-redeemers were those who RECEIVED the coupons but did not redeem them] increased their purchases in the sending stores.

In fact, the research shows that fully 60% of the 'sales lift' of the amount spent on BOTH promoted and non-promoted items occurring in the sending stores were from the non-redeeming group.

The control group in the research did not receive any coupon so as to allow clean testing so as to enable the researchers to verify that that 60% of the sales lift did indeed come from the group who had been mailed, but who did not redeem, the coupons.

Hence, coupons, especially non-redeemed coupons, help increase awareness of the brands of sending retailers.

Some Marketers Respond in “I Told You So” Fashion

Calling the extensive testing not surprising, some marketing consultants have trumpeted such findings for years, but have not had an 'erudite' study to back up their claims with coupon-inquisitive clients.

One Quad State marketing consultant who did not wish to be identified, told the Quad State Business Journal,

“Coupons actually serve as mini advertisements for a company in not only building their brand but by building foot traffic on 'off-campaign' occasions—especially when delivered via a postcard marketing campaigns. Recent advancements in personalization also give a company fine-tuned targeting capabilities. If businesses realized how powerful this increased awareness can be, they would take as much care with coupons as they do their other marketing materials. Coupons should be used to build long-term relationships, not just close a one-time deal to get cash in the door.”

Do Larger Coupon Discounts/Values Result In More Exposure?

Many owners look at marketing consultants with ideas for coupon campaigns as simply 'Trying to give away my margins with coupons.'

No doubt reality would find the opposite to be true in 95% of most cases.

That said, there are several tests that businesses can try with coupons on their 'own turf' to see what really works for them.

There are several theories on providing larger discounts, yea verily, larger value, on marketing promotions—many fit with coupon marketing.

These theories, backed up by marketing reality in many industries, are backed up by the one dictum of 'you need to find out what pleases your customers.' Many call these 'customer enrichment' initiatives.

We see them initially in Groupon® or other daily deal sites. Yet those situations usually do not build the long-term customer relationship like a more custom coupon campaign could. Great traffic is created, but some merchants are finding that few stick around for the higher-margin products.

In fact, some businesses test and re-test campaigns so well for their own marketplaces and customer acquisition, that their one repeated refrain with their marketing consultants oftentimes revolves around “How much can we give away on the front end?” in buying customers.

This is why you are seeing double coupons being used in a variety of situations—from McDonald's® straight across many industries.

These coupons are not 'double' in the sense that they are doubly discounted, but rather a coupon strategy that allows for an initial 'deal' and the second coupon for '$X Off on any purchase totaling $Y.'

This double coupon strategy gives merchants their best chance of building loyalty and increasing the spend of customers.

Speaking of Increasing the 'Spend' of Each Customer...

Many good consultants and business coaches help an owner develop their back end business—what happens after a customer buys—in establishing a good coupon marketing campaign.

To this end, the Business Solution Network have many solid Quad State pros who can help you do just that...and do it on a shoestring to test the waters to see how large a market you actually have.

Find them on the BSN site and links below in the Reference section.

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For further reading about the coupon study authors as referenced by the Harvard Business Review:

Rajkumar Venkatesan is the Bank of America Research Associate Professor of Business Administration, and Paul Farris is the Landmark Communications Professor of Business Administration, at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

For further information on Quad State Business Resources:

www.TheBusinessSolutionNetwork.com (Visit pros under the tabs 'Graphic Design' and 'Business Development' for the latest in what's working now.)

Could a Poorly Designed Website Be Costing You Revenue--And Maybe Your Entire Business?

 

As business owners, we rely a lot on other people's talents, connections and even advice and criticisms.

Oh, we don't really want that part to be spread around for sure. We would like other people to think that we are the proverbial self-made business folks, right?

But with something as esoteric, if that is the right word, as putting a website together to attract customers digitally, most of us realize our strengths do not lie in programming or design. We don't mind relying on others to do that part.

When Is the Last Time You Took A Hard Look at Your Website?

With all the talent in the Quad State region, we still come up with a plethora of website designers and outcomes.

1. “My niece [insert other relative or friend] knows about that website stuff, and she designed a real nice website for us for only a few bucks, isn't it beautiful?”

The owner talking directed his listener to his company's website. After studying the website for about 60 seconds, the listener asked “What are you selling here?”

Granted, I have witnessed some extremely good websites from owners who have done all the work—including programming—themselves. I'm thinking about the original owner of a well-known printing company in Washington County.

It is safe to say that these days we can get some graphically magnificent images on our websites—a lot of them for free—but do they have the purpose of directing the viewer's eyes to your company's solution? Or just look pretty?

“This local company has done a lot of websites for businesses in this area. We had them do ours, too, and it only cost $4,500 [insert figures to $10,000+].”

A local dentist was speaking to a their potential business coach. The business coach started looking into the clients of the web development firm. He found that while the copy for the sites researched all expressed the business' direction, they were all based on exactly the same website template. All the businesses looked the same.

A business needs to stand out. Boy, have we heard that phrase a lot. But the task is to stand out with a customer promise—a reason for folks to do business with you. Owners do need to take responsibility for the design of their site.

“Look, my job is to run my business. Websites are a necessary evil these days. I just need to focus on what I do best and let the digital folks focus on what they do best.”

That statement is hard to take issue with—on the surface. Yet the owner speaking here is committing the mistake a lot of owners make—that the 'digital folks' know as much about the owner's business as the owner does.

With the rise of mobile phones—some estimates put the future figure of 78% of all business decisions will be made using a mobile Internet-connected phone—it is imperative that we, as owners, look over our one, two or more websites on a regular basis to have some updating done.

A (Fairly) Agreed-Upon Website Checklist for Small Business Owners

We asked several SEO 'digital folks' in the Quad State region who also make up the Website talent on The Business Solution Network to give us their ideas. Not everyone does agree, of course, but we wanted to keep this article down below 3000 words!

This is, of course, not to be a comprehensive list as there are many other areas. It may be just the incentive you need to hire a quick check by a Quad State SEO pro to see what your site needs. Yet it is good point for us owners to think about. 

Is the 'main purpose' of your business accomplished in your website? In other words, at a glance, does it inform and offer solutions right off the bat?

• Does your copy offer clear anchor text for the search engines?
• Does your website reveal your passion(s) in the problems you are solving?
• Does your copy talk to a 'general' audience (i.e. the masses) or to a specific individual or individual group?
• Is your site boring? Are you sure your developer is building you a truly original site? Templates may be acceptable, but does your site show the sameness as other clients of the developer?
• Do you use any 'personal pain' in your solutions? In other words, in your site copy and/or your blog, do your readers understand how you came to your passion behind your solutions (be them dental, plumbing, business development or what have you)?
• Do you strive to be in alignment with keywords and Google or to be more responsive to customers and your product improvement? Unless your target market is selling to affiliate product markets (Amazon, etc.), the intent for this tip comes from asking owners to be more concerned with building their business/product/customer relationship quality and pay less attention to pleasing Google.
• When was the last time you had your site updated?

Quad State Web Developers Offer a Special to Quad State Owners

The Quad State Web developers of the Business Solution Network (www.TheBusinessSolutionNetwork.com) have offered any reader of the Quad State Business Journal a full website review or refreshment of any one of their business websites from this BSN Solution link:

http://thebusinesssolutionsnetwork.com/great-web-design.html

There are actually several developers combined with this offer but they have all agreed that 100% of the monies paid BSN for this special project will be earmarked for a local nonprofit before the end of 2013.

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Addendum:

After reading my own post again—I see I needed to focus on the last keyword from the bottom where I could have more pointedly explained why the SEO pros (not me, please) were kind of anti-Google IMHO.

After getting sat down and held by the hand by one of our Business Solution Network pros, here are some additional points.

First, not for the cause of Google's keyword searches, but the business owner is the one who needs to sit down and quantify his or her customer's needs. Give a 'story behind the story' (as Paul Harvey used to say) rendering of how your business's solutions will benefit the reader.

Next, are you committing to the 'truly important' things that matter to your readers and impact them...or donors or members or patients? See above.

Next, and I thought this was really valuable and we all think it but few of us owners actually follow through, but think in terms of value based marketing. It's kind of an extension of one, but this is you creating business value that is understandable to and easily used by your customers.

Last but not least, keep on with continuous improvement to keep customers coming back. It's not that our customers are fickle necessarily, but it is a natural human tendency to compare prices, compare offers, compare our own personal cost values before we make a purchase.

This value part of your business, product or service is what your marketing should be communicating to your customers. This is the part that goes beyond keyword matching.

When I was involved in direct mail marketing, demographic overlays were the prime innovation in direct mail. That is until psychographic (interests) overlays became the new insight for our industry and clients.

One could make the case that keyword research is only the demographic part. Then comes the psychographic or what the customer values as per their interests. Once the 'why people buy from you' task is solved, the 'how' is duck soup easy.

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Do We Need a Quad State Chamber of Commerce?

October 16, 2013 By Steve Lanning Leave a Comment

I remember in the mid-1990s  having a conversation with Washington County’s then Chamber president, Fred Teeter, on the possibility of developing a Quad State C of C.

He said he thought it would be a great idea. As I was a little surprised with his answer, Fred preceded to tell me of how our region was growing, the new stuff coming to Franklin and Berkeley counties that would benefit Washington County and how the region was tied together by I-81.

Truth be told, Fred did sound a little like the Quad State Business Journal’s founding publisher, Peter Heerwagen in describing the QSBJ’s footprint in the region.

As I travel throughout our region and talk to business owners and managers, I am struck with the similar answers I receive when talk goes to a regional chamber.

I am told of markets for their products and services less and less being defined as ‘within the county’ to ‘all up and down I-81′ to ‘my business is wherever my customers are.’

What Would a Regional Chamber Do That Is Not Being Done Already?

Well, that is the prime question. And this is certainly not an advocate type of article. Yet.

Everyone wants to ‘do business locally’ and they certainly should.

Everyone wants to ‘support my local chamber’ and they certainly should.
I am not convinced that a chamber chapter is even the right vehicle for advancing and tying our region together more closely for increased commerce.

It is probably an impossibility due to the many jurisdictions, state and county laws, rules and regulations. Four states is a very big hurdle for an organization to cross. My guess, it would have to take shape as an association or federation type of organization for it to make sense.

But do not think that the phrase ‘chamber of commerce’ is a trademark. It is not. Fred taught me that, too. Anyone anywhere can create a chamber of commerce so a trademark would not be part of any hurdle.

The issue going in, for this reporter anyway, would be what kind of business services, business education, business promotion, networking initiatives a regional chamber would provide a member. Members have to have a reason to join–anything.

Still It Does ‘Feel Like’ Our Quad State Region Needs ‘Something’ Cohesive 

I do not feel that a ‘chamber’ type organization is going to be the answer. Perhaps a regional business membership type org would be getting closer to benefiting all the contiguous counties. 

When one of our capable economic authority executives market their county across the country or even overseas, would it strengthen their case to have a business relocate in their county by telling of a general Quad State Economic Coalition type of organization?

Would it help or hinder the selling of local areas to say something like “You know, we have Interstate 81 running right down through our Quad State Economic Coalition and when you settle on our area, I will introduce you to some of the other shakers and movers along that route?”

It has now become a cliché to say that our region has so much potential, so I will not. Yet that does not lessen the truth of the statement. There is strength in numbers and people and organizations are attracted to groups that can show with both form and function that they are congruent with a business’s objectives.  What else is needed?
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About Steve Lanning
Steve Lanning is a successful and nationally recognized entrepreneur with decades of experience as a business executive and coach. Steve started his business life in the mid-1970s with a successful venture in Washington, DC which aimed at helping mostly small and one-person businesses nationally. He is the founder of the National Association of Business Coaches which he sold in 2002 and continues to encourage businesses to find and use coaches as a valuable business asset to solid business growth. Steve sees great promise in promoting the Quad State economic region and increasing trade between its entities.
Readers can contact Steve by email at steve@qsbj.org

The FCC to Business: ‘Ilegal’ Mobile Texting is $1,500 per-text fine as of October 16, 2013

If you do any kind of SMS (mobile) text marketing, the headline really says it all.

You have a number of customers signed up on your pizza business app. Real fans, all 300 of them.. It was a struggle getting them to download your app and give you their phone numbers, but now things seem to be humming along with your cash flow.

So now you and your business partner have this great idea for a new promotion on your slower days for your mobile customers. This is going to set revenue records. You text all 287 of them. You were right. It IS a record revenue day.

But now you get the news that as this is October 16,2013, you did not realize that the FCC, in all their wisdom to seemingly relieve people from  receiving  ’junk texts’ has a brand new reg–with teeth and a $1,500 per-text fine. You just racked up over $400,000 in fines. How? Why?

Remember ‘Junk Faxes’ Back in the Early 1990s? Same Thing with Mobile Now

As of October 16,2013 anyone doing SMS messaging must re-qualify all their customers and have them opt-in again. There are many other ‘sweet’ items in the new reg, too.

It is all part of the continuing impact of FCC’s TCPA Act signed into law back in 1991. TCPA means Telephone Consumer Protection Act and it did have quite an impact on marketing via fax back in the 1990s. Ok, fast-forward to 2013.

SMS text messaging is considered the same thing as ‘auto-dialed’ or ‘robo-calls’ where a business could ‘mass market’ or do blanket calling in a certain target area.

So what does this mean in real time to a business or even a nonprofit organization looking to garner donors?

Two main things really.

You must have prior written consent from those looking to receive your texts. This is further underscored in the law as of October 16 that your instructions must be ‘unambiguous’ as to what you are asking your customers to do.

Secondly, the phrase ‘prior established business relationship’ which applied up until October 16, now does not protect the advertiser of prior ‘unambiguous written consent’ freedom-to-send and means that a new round of getting your same customers to sign up again must happen now.

We realize that some Quad State businesses may have thousands of fans that have opted in over the past couple of years. Yet there are some ’fairly’ simple remedies that can get you on the right side of compliance. This means that digital signatures are accepted.

The editorial staff of the Quad State Business Journal has discovered an excellent blog article by Brad Bortone that actually will give Quad Staters live examples of how-to-do-it compliance, and, probably just as important, Brad also gives an example of how ‘not’ to do the compliance dance. See the link at the resource section at the bottom of this article.

There will be many Quad State businesses and maybe even their marketing advisers who are not aware of this huge sea-change in SMS messaging. Feel free to copy and send them a link of this article to be forewarned.

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.http://digitalmarketer.com/fcc-sms-regulations-preparation/

 http://quadstatebusinessjournal.com/the-fcc-to-business-ilegal-e-mail-texting-is-1500-per-text-fine-as-of-october-16-2013/

About Steve Lanning
Steve Lanning is a successful and nationally recognized entrepreneur with decades of experience as a business executive and coach. Steve started his business life in the mid-1970s with a successful venture in Washington, DC which aimed at helping mostly small and one-person businesses nationally. He is the founder of the National Association of Business Coaches which he sold in 2002 and continues to encourage businesses to find and use coaches as a valuable business asset to solid business growth. Steve sees great promise in promoting the Quad State economic region and increasing trade between its entities.
Readers can contact Steve by email at steve@qsbj.org