How can I get coupons?

How can I get businesses interested in offering coupons?

• There was a brief interest in coupons from my clients about a year ago. So much so that I started a mailing list to send out weekly coupons (12,000 subscribers at last count). I even started a dedicated coupon website just for their coupons that was relatively popular at the time. Since then the interest in coupons has died off and nobody really has said why or anything about it. So my question is how can I get my clients interested or re-interested in offering coupons again?

• Answer:

  CPG coupon redemption declined about 8% but volume increased about 1.8% according to the NCH Mid-Year Coupon Trends report. That decline was from some historical highs, so keep that in perspective. In addition, promotional volume in non-CPG is still very high, only slightly down from the highs and still pretty high. What you may be seeing is a fatigue from your clients or just a lot more choices. Major promotional media companies, newspapers, the IYP's and a whole host of regional marketers now offer relatively sophisticated ways for retailers to send out promotional messages. That said - the best way to add value is to figure out how to reduce the cost of the promotions to the client. That may be through taking fees only in redemption, for instance. Also, mobile is growing fast at the local level - try to work with client and vendors to offer a solution there.  If you have a site and email list, then add more social and ask clients to differentiate their offers. One issue I've seen is too many coupon providers offering the same coupons - get your clients to consider different kinds of offers and promotions.