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