Marketing your solo business with coupons can be a very effective selling strategy if you incorporate some of the time-proven and tested principles that other marketers have learned about this special kind of advertising.
Here are a few more tips that will help any small business owner make his coupon campaign a success regardless of the product or niche he's in:
1- Do split testing on a small scale prior to rolling out your full-blown coupon campaign. The idea is to find the best and most effective design, headline, offer, pricing, and ad copy before you spend the money to print and distribute your coupons to the bulk of your targeted audience.
2- If possible, send coupons to the same people more than once. Sometimes you will get a better response on the 2nd or 3rd try. Often your prospects will put the first coupon away somewhere to be redeemed later and they'll forget about it until another coupon shows up to remind them that they were going to respond but haven't done it yet.
3- Develop and use a powerful headline. Studies have shown that up to 80% of the decision to read an ad or a newspaper or magazine article is based on the "catchiness" of the headline alone.
4- Coupons will work most effectively for products or services that the average person already uses or understands. In other words, if you have a product that is unlike any others or that breaks new ground in what it does or how it is used, it is probably not going to do well in a coupon campaign.
5- Coupons often attract those who will not necessarily become long-standing repeat customers in your niche. The "quality" of the coupon customer is usually not as good as the quality of a prospect responding to a very niche-targeted ad. Especially online, there are many who float around looking for coupons and discount offers without the intent of ever becoming a solid, long-term niche customer.
6- Don't be afraid to do a joint venture campaign with complimentary businesses. Sharing the cost of distributing coupons with another business and opening up your marketing to a whole new set of prospects is a great way to increase your business reach, especially if the partner has a great relationship with his customer data base. You will benefit from his credibility and name recognition.
7- Try a variety of marketing mediums for your coupons (web-based, direct mail, coupon books, card decks, ride-alongs with shipped products, etc.) Be sure to code each coupon so that you can track the responses that you get back and see where your money is generating the greatest response.
8- It can be an effective strategy to offer a coupon inside a press release. If a few widely read news articles appear with reference to a coupon offer, your business could find itself swamped with new prospects.
Coupons are an effective way for a small business to promote itself, brand itself, go prospecting for new customers, and make additional sales. They will not be the answer to the cash flow needs of most businesses, but they can be a great supplement to the main sales product strategies if they are designed and executed to realize at least break-even revenues or better.
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