These layoffs will continue to depress local economies and create more fear and uncertainty. While shoring up their financial positions large companies create a ripple effect that hurts the small businesses that depend on the spending of those laid off workers.

Another question is whether enough new jobs can be generated to re-absorb those workers over the next few years. Hopefully those promised “green jobs” and infrastructure investments pan out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28854051/

On the opportunity side, this news will continue to increase coupon usage as consumers look to save money. Coupon site  traffic is increasing (http://tinyurl.com/67gev6), while consumers eliminate their land lines to save money (http://tinyurl.com/bg5wbd) relying on their mobile phones.

Consumers would take advantage of mobile rewards if the service contained more offers from the local stores that they are interested in. Even coupons.com contains only 58 offers that can be redeemed at stores in my area.

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Even in a recession small businesses still need to advertise. A local business owner told us that he spent $1500/month to distribute his coupons in local media, targeting over 300,000 homes and yielded 1200 redemptions a month. Thats a .4% response and a cost of $1.25/customer. He didn’t have the statistics to determine how many of those consumers were new customers.

The media used were primarily local newspapers, with some marketing emails sent from the corporate site, based on consumers going to the corporate site and filling out a form.

The resulting traffic was primarily the older demographic that read the paper and clipped coupons. The younger market was not being directly marketed to but learned of the location primarily through word of mouth. I spoke to students at a local high school a short distance away and though many knew of the brand, they had no idea where the store was, and frequented the competitor within walking distance from the school. Few knew that the business owner had a coupon offer that was unmatched in the area.

The focus of RewardFlow.com is to help businesses get their offers in front of interested consumers more efficiently. At the same time we don’t want them to leave their social consciousness behind. Many have reduced direct contributions, but we are hoping that they will still provide in-kind services or rewards that might increase traffic to their stores.

I am especially interested in seeing if targeting incentives toward student achievement programs can spur participation and increase student performance. Schools already do this in house, but additional incentives from the business community could encourage more students to participate.

admin Local Advertising cause marketing, education, incentives, Local Advertising, rewards