Dear Dan: I’m looking for ways to stimulate more business, and coupons come to mind. Is this a good time to be thinking about a coupon campaign of some kind? – Coupon Curious
Dear Coupon Curious: Many small businesses are looking to the Web as a great way to inexpensively create and distribute coupons, both locally and nationally. Zixxo, for example, is a Web site that helps you create coupons and get them placed on hundreds of affiliated Web sites, including Yahoo, Google and AOL. You can add your own existing coupon as an image, or create a custom coupon for your business with their coupon wizard. The site also helps you manage multiple coupons, and edit, delete or pause them instantly.
Zixxo is also good at helping small businesses target coupons locally. Some of the most popular local coupons on the site include restaurants, auto repair shops, dry cleaners, car cashes, landscaping, spas and dentists. Online businesses use the site to create and distribute coupons for their Web store nationally. Visit www.zixxo.com.
Coupon Fusion (CouponFusion.com) is an online service that lets you create printable coupons for your own Web site. You can easily develop coupons with no design experience by using the site’s software. Use your own business logo and colors, and insert your own images, or use clipart from the site’s gallery.
Then all you have to do is tell the system when you want the coupon to appear, and hit “send.” Coupon Fusion automatically makes your coupon visible on your Web site during the dates you specify.
Traditional coupon pack mailers such as ValPak (www.ValpPak.com) and Money Mailer (www.MoneyMailer.com) are also good choices.
These services also offer online distribution. Valpak.com, for example, lets customers search for neighborhood business coupons by city, state or zip code.
DealLocker.com is a coupon sharing Web site where you can submit and distribute (share) your own coupons. This site, too, reports a huge jump in traffic over the last few months as consumers look for ways to save money.
Coupons Inc., which operates the Web site Coupons.com, offers a wide range of coupon-related business solutions, including:
• Distribution across a vast network of Web sites that will offer visitors your coupons
• Web-based promotions and a device they call “WebBricks” that can coupon-enable the pages on your Web site.
• Using coupons to generate customer information that you can use for your own database and future marketing efforts.
• Helping customers receive your coupons by mail if they have trouble printing them online. •
Daniel Kehrer can be reached at editor@business.com.
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