Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

For all the effort restaurants and retailers are putting into digital marketing efforts and smartphone apps, there’s no beating the old paper circular and clipped coupons among cost-conscious shoppers.

Those findings, from to a recent report by Retail Feedback Group, can in part be explained by the sheer number of coupons available. In the first half of the year, 92.5 percent of the 171 billion coupons (that’s right: billion) distributed for consumer packaged goods such as food and household goods came in the form of free-standing inserts.

Digital coupons, while growing fast, made up less than 1 percent of the total, according to NCH Marketing Services (PDF)....

Everyone loves a deal. This infographic from the folks at Vouchercloud outlines the growth in digital coupons, who’s using them and how they’re being used.

Here are some highlights:

- The use of coupons during a shopping experience has risen from 63% to 92% in just the past five years, and a lot of this growth has been driven by online coupons.

- Consumers have greater access to online coupons through email, shared through social media, and online via a plethora of coupon-specific websites....

The use of coupons is a proved and tested Marketing tool that has clear benefits and objectives; you give people money off to encourage new product trial, brand loyalty and customer retention. However, only recently have coupons started playing a major role in digital campaigns too. Digital coupons can help measure the return of different Marketing campaigns, make use of the ‘mobile’ trend, giving people the opportunity to always have access to the most relevant coupons, as well as increase customer engagement on social media outlets. 67 percent of consumers will ‘like’ a Facebook page to obtain a 25%+ saving from a brand and 71% searched online for a coupon after hearing about it on social media....

Wow – as soon as I saw this infographic from VoucherCloud, a leading UK voucher and discount site, I knew I had to share it!

The infographic is a comprehensive look at retail discounts, voucher strategies, loyalty cards and coupon marketing best practices for retailers. It provides the profile of a coupon user, tips and tricks for optimizing your campaigns, and a ton of examples from leading retailers.

What I appreciate most is this quote (slightly edited):

Many businesses fail to achieve the benefits of coupons by offering promotions which compromise their profits, fail to market their business and de-value their products due to regular campaigns running in quick succession or by offering significantly high price reductions....