Bargain hunters may be savvy with scissors or an online coupon code, but consumers are just getting used to the idea of redeeming coupons through their mobile devices. This means the people and the technology behind your point-of-sale need to be equipped to troubleshoot issues with new paperless price reductions.
As a small-business owner, one advantage is that you don’t need to invest in pricey technology to make your coupons easy to use. Building an effective mobile coupon strategy is as simple as following these three steps.
Step One: Create your coupon in a mobile-friendly format.
The mobile coupons that are easiest for consumers to use generally come in three basic formats, each with its own pros and cons as follows:
1. Text-only coupons. You can create text-only coupons using a Short Message Service (SMS) provider or your email marketing service provider.
- Best for: Text messages and mobile emails.
- Pros: Almost all phones have text and email capabilities. You can include short links, coupon codes or instructions for using the coupon in the text.
- Cons: You only have 160 characters to communicate and deliver the discount offer.
2. Image coupons. You can create an image of your coupon with a scanner or graphic design software. Use .jpg or .gif file types for mobile devices.
- Best for: Including coupons in social-media posts, e-mails and Multimedia Message Service (MMS).
- Pros: Images can be displayed on the majority of mobile devices.
- Cons: Links in images aren’t clickable and the details of the coupon may be too small to read on a small screen if your customers don’t have smartphones with zoom and scroll capabilities.
3. Web-based and app-based coupons. You can create a coupon in HTML and put it on your website or, better yet, on a mobile web page. You can also create mobile-friendly web and app-based coupons using Google Places, Yelp and Foursquare.
- Best for: Mobile web pages and local directory sites.
- Pros: You can include links to your coupons in the advertising.
- Cons: The web pages containing your coupons need to be optimized for mobile, or they might not display properly on the majority of mobile devices.
Step Two: Give your coupon redeeming qualities.
To give your prospects and customers the ability to redeem your mobile coupons, make sure they contain one or more of the following redemption options:
- Use the text in your coupon to ask people to use their mobile phone to show the coupon at your physical point of sale. Make sure the humans involved know how to accept the coupon and know how to spot currently valid versions.
- Phone numbers in your coupons can be pressed or clicked from text messages, emails and web-based coupons. Use the text in your coupons to ask people to mention the coupon when they call, and keep your mobile coupon offers unique so you know when your callers are responding to the mobile version of your coupon.
- Links can be tagged with a unique redemption code if you have a sophisticated shopping cart and database, or you can include the coupon code in the text of the coupon and ask people to enter the code into the online order form. Make sure your website’s shopping cart works on mobile devices before choosing this method.
- If you plan to scan bar codes at your point-of-sale to automate the redemption process, don’t expect your regular equipment to do the job. You’ll likely need a special scanner that can read the bar codes from a mobile screen.
Step Three: Distribute to mobile devices.
Now, make sure your mobile-friendly formats make their way to your customers’ devices. These methods will aid your distribution plan.
- Use your text-messaging service provider or email marketing service provider to deliver a text-only coupon or link to your web-based or image-based coupon. Remember that you can only send these messages to a permission-based list.
- Send them via MMS text messages, which can contain pictures and more than 160 characters. MMS also requires opt-in permission and a service provider to send the messages on behalf of your business.
- Place your coupon on your high-traffic web pages. Make sure those pages are designed for mobile devices. Make sure they’re on your own mobile app and social media sites as well.
- Ask customers to snap a picture of your paper coupon or include a mobile bar code on your coupon that links to an image or web page containing the coupon.
- Place your coupon on other mobile-friendly websites such as Google Places and Foursquare.
Remember, the goal is to give your discount-deserving customers good customer service to go along with their bargains. Your coupon strategy will go a long way toward creating lasting customer relationships.
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Comments:
It is nice information,What's great about mobile i found it really helpful... thanks for the info...
coupon payment on a bond is a periodic interest payment that the bondholder receives during the time between when the bond is issued and when it matures. Coupons are normally described in terms of the coupon rate, which is calculated by adding the total amount of coupons paid per year and dividing by the bond's face value.
The technology used can be fairly simple. A lot of people now have access to emails on their phones, so even a basic format of emailing the code to them could work. It's important to ensure that your staff members are well trained and that the redemption process goes smoothly and efficiently. Giving your customers a great experience is more likely to get them coming back to *you*. Leaving your customers indifferent (or with a poor experience) means they are far more likely to use the fabulous new app to get the next deal (which may be for your competitor) instead. If you'd like to discuss ways of running good campaigns, feel free to drop us a line.
I like this all thre types of mobile coupon strategy. And really inspired through text-only coupon strategy. The droid app is awesome too. Seems like they are growing too. coupon code
Hey, nice post. QR codes are going to be a great tool for advertisers along with blue-casting. If you are going to make use of QR codes you have to make some sort of sticker.
Tried almost every mobile coupon provider out there... www.BoostBargains.com definitely provides the most coupons. The droid app is awesome too. Seems like they are growing too... http://www.prweb.com/releases/boostbargains/mobilecoupons/prweb5161374.htm
I believe that Facebook Places and Facebook Deals (where it is available) combined in to a location based service (by the usage of Facebook API) will be a great tool. The users wants to tell their friends what they are doing and they can see all the offers in the nearby locations. For the companies it will be an easy way to create offers instantly and very flexible. Facebook Places can be combined with an existing Facebook Page. In relation to QR codes I believe that it is also a great tool - use it for instance to tell the good story about the product. This can be done by an encoded link to the company web site or for instance to a video about the product. But why niot take it all the way? If you are going to make use of QR codes you have to make some sort of sticker. Why not make that sticker a smarter sticker by use of NFC (Near Field Communication). The new Google Nexus S smartphone for instance has the NFC 'sensor'. The users can hold the smartphone close to the smart sticker (with RFID technology implemented) and pling the promotion material is shown on the users device. The smart sticker must be shaped like an add with a QR code and a field indicating NFC/RFID is present (place your phone here or something like that). We developed a location-based service for shop offers in the nearby locations - and combined that service with a treasure hunt implemented with QR codes to get the shooping streets visitors all the way through the shopping street from start to end. Forget the old phones. Everybodys replace them with either smartphone or tablet.
Why not have them opt-in for mobile alerts rather than emails? Email marketing is dying, and rightfully so. With only a 16% open rate, why would any company use email still?
Another good tip is to have a process in which to get your staff in-store to sign people up to local offers via email. You can then use this list to promote your local coupons & any iphone/android apps you might have.
The channels to distribute the coupons are important (Text, MMS or QR code) but what we have found by experience is that the channel helps but what makes the program a success is the value of the offer. If you text you customers “Happy Hours stars a 5pm see you here!” you will see the program decline overtime because it lacks the “What’s in it for me answer”. Instead if you add a little value such as,”Happy Hour starts at 5p. Show this message and your first appetizer is on us!” now you are offering something the recipients wants to keep and use. Keep value at top-of-mind and you will be successful with any channel you choose. For more on text message marketing and how to determine if its right for your business read our interview at http://www.momares.com/blog/interview-is-mobile-marketing-right-for-your-small-business/
QR codes are going to be a great tool for advertisers along with blue-casting. Stores need to adopt the technology and customers need to have smart phones, Be Seen, Be Heard, Be Connected www.themilanogroup.com
We are in the process of developing a mobile app to get mobile coupons, it will be part of our new web site www.BuckYourSelf.com launching in April!
What's great about mobile is that it doesn't have to be one or the other. I love using QR codes to opt customers into an SMS campaign as an example. See my blog post here: http://thederekjohnson.com/2011/01/25/creating-qr-codes-for-text-messaging-campaigns/ about how to do this for your own business.
Thanks thinkroth. QR codes are definitely another way to enable coupons. Just keep in mind that even though you can design mobile sites for all kinds of phones, not all phones can snap QR codes.
An addition to web based coupons is QR Code based coupons that link to a specially designed mobile page just for that coupon. These pages can be designed to work across mobile devices to make sure that the coupon is accessible on a variety of mobile devices. This lets you merge paper coupons and mobile coupons into a single promotion, as well as streamlining the process.