Membership And Downloads VS. Scissors: Online Coupon Advertising

Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 18 of July , 2008 at 12:13 pm

Local online advertising can incorporate a lot of products and advertising styles but coupons will always be a great kick-start for a new product. Marketing Vox has a post about the coupon usage online and in the Sunday newspaper to look at the coupon clipping habits of consumers.

Internet coupons are of increasing interest to consumers, with 11 percent of households now obtaining them online — an increase of 83 percent since 2005 — according to (pdf) a recent analysis by Scarborough Research, reports MarketingCharts. However, the Sunday newspaper remains the number-one place for acquiring household coupons: 53 percent of households usually get their coupons from the Sunday newspaper.

I find it interesting but not suprising that coupons offered for online advertising still trail the rest of the markets so much.

Online coupons account for only 11% of the market, in comparison to in-store coupons.

Other leading places for acquiring coupons include the mail (35 percent), in-store coupons (33 percent), preferred customer/loyalty cards (22 percent), in-store circulars (22 percent), weekday newspapers (17 percent), product packages (17 percent) and magazines (15 percent).

There is a huge online market for coupons and entire blogospheres dedicated to it, but the market is still trailing. Why? I have my suspicions.

Online marketers that offer coupons usually do so through special ‘online coupon source’ sites that require membership and a site-specific printer download to print your coupons. For the average coupon clipper in a hurry, the 5 minutes of typing and downloading required for what may be one single 20 cent off coupon just isn’t worth it.

In comparison, the ability to whip out some scissors and clip a coupon from the Sunday paper is monumentally easier.

When companies advertising their products streamline their online coupon offerings to be in line with ease of the Sunday paper, we’ll see a larger increase the online market share.

Companies should remember the ease and entitlement which consumers feel is necessary to make the leap from interesting product to purchased product.

                      Category: Local Online Advertising