How Creative Entrepreneurs Can Use Mobile Coupons to Grow Their Business

Mobile coupons are the perfect application for mobile phone advertising. After all, coupons are used by consumers when they are out and on the go. Not many people cart a computer and printer everywhere they go, or even scissors and newspaper inserts, just so they can find and print coupons for the businesses they visit. And who plans in advance enough to pull and print those coupons at home first?

Restaurants and other big box retailers are starting to understand the advantages of offering mobile coupons. Chipotle has signed up thousands of loyal customers in the past few weeks alone, all by word of mouth promotion. Grocery stores are even looking for ways to offer mobile coupons for the brands and products their customers use the most.

The reasons to offer mobile coupons are numerous. For example, mobile coupons will help encourage repeat sales, move overstocked inventory, and give customers an incentive to try out a new product. They can increase traffic during typically slower times, and also are a good way to cushion the blow of, and ease customers into, a price increase.

Large retailers don’t have to be the only vendors who can take advantage of mobile coupons. Small to midsized businesses, or those businesses out of the normal retail/food service box can benefit from using mobile coupons as well. It is really just a matter of thinking creatively about what the right opportunities would be to offer mobile coupons to your customers.

Who are your customers? What people are you trying to reach? What are they doing when they would typically purchase from you? How can you make their overall experience better?

Let’s suppose that you run a children’s hair salon. So, your customers are most likely the parents of at least one, and maybe several children. A typical scenario for these parents would be that a haircut for the kids is one of many errands that need to be run for the day. They have probably already spent a lot of money running errands and it would be easy to put off the haircuts for another week. But if they have a mobile coupon handy that offers a discount on haircuts, they will have more incentive to stop in.

The same questions apply whether you sell insurance, run a greeting card store or own the local diner in town. Any business with customers who use mobile phones would benefit from considering situations where their customers might appreciate and use mobile coupons.

Internet marketers would even benefit from mobile coupons, even though their customers typically have computer access. Consider offering a “mobile club”, exclusive to those customers that opt into your mobile list. Their opt in would give them access to specials, discounts or rebates that others would not receive.

Everyone wants to stand out from their competition, and for the creative entrepreneur, mobile coupons can become a great way to do just that.

Try out mobile phone advertising for free and see how affordable and powerful it can be for your small business. Enter promo code “mobilenow” in the free trial signup and get double the credits during your trial period!