Return of the Coupon…Subtitle: Emergence of Online Coupons

To many of us coupons seem like an antiquated way of attracting new customers. I remember my mom's coupon wallet, which to her was as valuable as her real wallet. Coupon redemption when shopping with mom at the grocery store took almost as for the checker as it took them to scan all the groceries. I will never forget the rush my mom seemed to get from getting her receipt and seeing the total she saved with coupons at the bottom. Soon my dad was hooked to and came up with fun incentives for us that rewarded our family's use of coupons (I didn't realize at the time how much the family bank account benefited from his "coupon challenges"). This was a practice I never took too. Instead, like many of my generation, I utilized the internet, shopper and discount cards to find the best deals and build reward points (reward points I rarely ever utilize but always thought I would). While my mom has finally started to move into the "information age" she is still constantly managing an aggressive "coupon campaign" and many of her texts and e-mails to us are about a great coupon but today she isn't telling me I need to clip a coupon, rather she tells me where to go online to print the coupon.

Mom apparently isn't the only one using coupons today. With the recent economic downturn, coupons are seeing a return to prominence. After nearly a decade of year-over-year declines in coupon usage and redemption, coupon usage has seen a recent upturn. Last year Inmar reported that coupon redemptions grew by 27% and NCH Marketing Services claimed coupon redemption levels "achieved the second highest year-over-year growth ever recorded."

If you currently have an online self storage marketing campaign and aren't making online coupons a part of that campaign you may be missing out on a valuable advertising tool. The overall growth of coupon use pales in comparison to the redemption of online coupons. It has been reported that online coupon redemption has grown more than 260% in recent years and those growth numbers were reported before the immense success of companies like groupon.com. Coupons help build a sense of urgency with potential self storage tenants who feel a need to take action before coupon expiration. There are people (like my mom) who start their search for the best deals on a website by looking for any coupons she can print. If you don't already have an online coupon to promote storage unit deals at your facility consider adding one today. Follow our blog over the coming days for ideas to build and optimize an online coupon campaign.