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Local coupon flyer response rates?

by Kent_Thompson
13 replies
I built a coupon flyer system called 25 Coupons that automates the process of putting together a local coupon flyer. Here's what I am doing: I am using an 11x17 full-color folded flyer, divided up into 1/4-page ads and selling for 4 cents per ad for the inside and 5 cents per ad on the outside of the flyer. (I can do other sizes of ads too, but 1/4-page seems to be the most popular cost/size ratio).

I went out and pounded the pavement for my first zone and sold 13 advertisers, using a combination of a local barter network, cold calling, door-to-door, and a chamber of commerce email advertisement. I managed to get some national franchises on board. Not quite a full-flyer, but this was just my first zone and more or less a test of the concept.

I had them printed and mailed out using an Every Door Direct Mail vendor and waited for the responses.

Some advertisers got decent responses and a few were eager to do it again, but others were on the fence.

I have tried to figure out what could be causing the lower responses for some advertisers and have come up with a few possible reasons:

1. Not good enough offers on the coupons
2. Coupons don't look good enough
3. Not enough mailboxes for the sample. I went to 2,500 (although that should be enough for a test)
4. Too much "coupon flyer" competition in the area, like valpack, clipper, etc..., causing coupon fatigue to consumers
5. ???

Does anyone else have any insights they might like to share as to why certain businesses wouldn't get the response they had hoped for? If you want, you can visit the link above to see the actual flyer that got mailed.

On the bright side, I met with a local business owner in an entirely different area from where I did my test who owns 12 stores in different towns around where I live (this type of owner is not at all uncommon for brick-and-mortar) and he was so desperate for a service like this that he offered to take me around this one town and show me all the businesses I should sell to and said he would contact them for me and let them know I would be contacting them next week!

He does coupons a lot and told me a story about how he ran coupons in this one city in a coupon magazine and did great until they no longer offered him an exclusive on his category. So I am offering an exclusive to business owners already but more importantly I'm hoping to get more insight and advice from him as I move forward.

So, I am excited to launch a couple new zones next week, and I'm thinking that #4 could be one of the biggest factors. I think I am going to avoid the metro-areas that have a lot of competition which is where I did this first one. This business owner told me two areas where he has stores that have ZERO coupon flyers of this nature in the area. So hopefully when residents get these they will be much more receptive and responsive to the offers, and thus the business owners will want to continue long term. Anyway, that is my theory and hope.

I would love to hear anyone's experience with coupon flyers, what your response rates were, retention rates, etc...

The profit margins on what I am doing are quite good, around $2,000/mo per zone. If I can get one new zone every 2 months, then that's $12,000/mo in one year. Totally possible to do, if I can get the retention rates that I need. Of course some businesses will want to drop off, but with about 75% retention I think there would be enough new businesses wanting to get on board that it would be sustainable.

I have a lot more information to share to anyone interested. I have seen some other coupon flyer discussions on here and know that others are trying the same sort of thing. Please ask questions!
Thanks, Kent
#coupon #coupon flyer #eddm #every door direct mail #flyer #local #rates #response
  • Profile picture of the author Steve The Copywriter
    I've done lots of Flyers and Postcards.

    Mainly for solo advertisers.

    The unshakeable "mantra" in getting a good/great/fantastic response is always have an irresistible offer.

    Look at your Ads that did well - it's almost certainly the ones with the best offers.

    The audience thought "Wow, now that is worth having!"

    It's good the advertisers give a "discount" although it's not always irresistible..

    10%, 20% off or a reduced price always helps. But if the margins can stand it the higher the better.

    And if you try "Get the X discount and a Y Free" (always good to put a "do it by a certain date" to get people to act quickly making sure the "Y" has a high perceived "value"*).

    It can skyrocket the response.


    Steve


    P.S.* When you work it out carefully it doesn't need to expensive for the advertiser.

    And the flows of extra business and profits makes the "cost" a fabulous investment.
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  • Profile picture of the author Doran Peck
    If you have a ton of ads on your multi sheet mailer I'm likely not going to browse the whole thing....and yes, you become just another coupon thing.

    I believe a postcard nullifies all of that by being a much more tolerable space to get through quickly, and is actually conducive to curiosity ( the need to check everything to settle the subconcious question "what's in this for me")

    Secondly....my first reaction is to look at the value of the coupons from a customers perspective. Business owners have to understand that simply need to do whatever it takes to get someone to actually get off their butt and walk through their doors...once that happens, once they are on the property he can sell the hell out of them. The whole point of direct mail is to motivate people to become physically present at their store or on their ecommerse store...NOT to do the selling for him. So if its not motivating people it's not good enough.

    Lastly I'd like to reiterate the importance of exposure....you are mailing to every household in an area...that itself has massive value alone. There is a percentage of people in every mailing who never heard of he guy before, but they do now....and he's fresh on EVERYONE'S mind.

    If he thinks he's golden because he's sitting on top of the local search he is sadly mistaken...because if people have to go looking for some one like him, his marketing sucks...good marketing is that which makes you a household name. On google, people are simultaneously being introduced to all his competitors. Not ideal.
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    • Profile picture of the author mojo1
      I don't know why biz owners continue to put out poor offers and think they're really doing the buying public a favor. 10%, 15% or 20% coupons rarely motivates unless the item sold is $50 or more.

      I recently bought a $20 discount coupon 11 x17 flyer from a Lacrosse club member at my daughter's high school. My favorite food/restaurant locations had really good offers.
      Chick-fil-A had 3 (completely) Free Original chicken sandwiches, Cici's Pizza had 4 buy one get one free coupons, expired 5/16/14, Bruster's ice cream had 4 buy one get one free coupons good until 12-31-14 and the Waffle house offered a free waffle with ANY purchase with unlimited uses until 12-31-14.

      Those 4 vendors alone were worth the cost of the coupon flyer. All the others were just nice to have.

      As a consumer, I felt like those merchants rolled out the welcome mat and truly wanted to do business with the people within their community. They didn't come off as teeth clinching biz owners who begrudgingly offered a measly 10-20% offer on some low, cost food item.

      Btw, the student who approached me about the coupon flyer on a Friday evening had 12 flyers when she pitched me and by Sunday evening, she only had one coupon flyer left. People recognize value where it's present and good printed offers do still attract customers like wild fire.
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  • Profile picture of the author AmericanMuscleTA
    So, basically, this is a Bob Ross 9 x 12 system, just done for you?

    I heard Bob Ross is now offering a lead generation service to his 9 x 12 system.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kent_Thompson
      AmericanMuscleTA, I'm not familiar with Bob Ross's system but I have seen it mentioned on here before.

      This is a website service I developed myself using software to automatically lay out and generate an 11x17 flyer and manage all the businesses that advertise on it, with logins, credit card checkout, ad previews, etc...

      mojo1, interestingly I contacted and got through to a Chick-fil-A store. They liked what I was doing but declined because they now handle all their coupons through corporate because people were copying them and they now use watermarks, etc... I would have loved to have had them on there but oh well, moving on...
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      • Profile picture of the author sweetcrabhoney18
        Originally Posted by Kent_Thompson View Post

        AmericanMuscleTA, I'm not familiar with Bob Ross's system but I have seen it mentioned on here before.

        This is a website service I developed myself using software to automatically lay out and generate an 11x17 flyer and manage all the businesses that advertise on it, with logins, credit card checkout, ad previews, etc...

        mojo1, interestingly I contacted and got through to a Chick-fil-A store. They liked what I was doing but declined because they now handle all their coupons through corporate because people were copying them and they now use watermarks, etc... I would have loved to have had them on there but oh well, moving on...
        You might want to research him a little bit. His system is just like yours but you've placed yours online. You might be able to find a ton of tips and advice from his system. There are links all over the forum ; just do a quick search and you'll be perfect. Best of luck with your service.
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        keep moving forward

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      • Profile picture of the author AmericanMuscleTA
        Originally Posted by Kent_Thompson View Post

        AmericanMuscleTA, I'm not familiar with Bob Ross's system but I have seen it mentioned on here before.

        This is a website service I developed myself using software to automatically lay out and generate an 11x17 flyer and manage all the businesses that advertise on it, with logins, credit card checkout, ad previews, etc...

        mojo1, interestingly I contacted and got through to a Chick-fil-A store. They liked what I was doing but declined because they now handle all their coupons through corporate because people were copying them and they now use watermarks, etc... I would have loved to have had them on there but oh well, moving on...
        Looks like a pretty great service! So, once we find the clients the software does the rest??
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        www.BibleAndFriendsYouTube.com

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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    I think you are off to a good start and just a thought. You should reserve some space with a little blurb asking if the person is a business owner who might may want to be included.

    Leverage all those numbers to your advantage because you're bound to have one delivered to some ones address who's a business owner.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kent_Thompson
    Thanks sweetcrabhoney18, I will look him up!

    Rus Sells, I actually did use a 1/4 page for myself...the square with the postage indicia in it since that was a smaller square. It was a pitch for my own service.

    I also have smaller text at the bottom of the flyer on the border which is a pitch for my service.

    In future mailings that I do I will be selling the space that I used because that is pure profit and much more valuable. I figure that businesses owners who get the flyer and want to advertise on it will see my smaller text at the bottom and will contact me.

    Another thing I wanted to mention on this thread is that I have had several people, business owners, customers, etc..., mention to me that you need 2-3 impressions before you really start to get the responses. So keeping that in mind, it could be that my lower responses for some businesses was due to the fact that it was a new service and hadn't had several impressions yet.

    However, mojo1, that is really interesting concept, as a fundraiser. I have heard of that being done before and we used to purchase different coupon booklets from fundraising groups. There were really good deals in there which was why we bought and used them. But yeah, I agree that if the offers aren't worthwhile, then few will use them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kent_Thompson
    AmericanMuscleTA, yes exactly. I had the idea of creating a coupon flyer for my local community, but being a programmer I wanted to have every single step of the process automated, like online orders, sending email invoices, charging credit cards, changing around the layout of the ads, automated pdf generation, basically everything. So I built this system to do it and then made changes and revisions as I went along, once I figured out how things should work. (Discovering HOW something should work is the #1 challenge of any new software...the actual programming is easy once you have it all mapped out)

    And because my ads are outsourced and the printing and mailing are outsourced, the only real job for the manager is to sell the local businesses. Not saying that is super easy, but also not super hard. For my first flyer, I made contact with around 30-35 businesses and sold 13 (some being on trade, if that counts as a sale). All in about 3 weeks from my first foot to the ground until printing.

    So the hard part is not getting 1 business, but having to get 10-15, all at once, in order to fill the flyer by your print deadline.

    This next time I think I will do better. Starting tomorrow I'll be selling my next two zones. I'm giving myself more time this time...4 weeks.

    Now that I am outsourcing all the ads on fiverr, I'm hoping for a much better finished product in terms of the design of the ads that weren't supplied by corporate. About half of my advertisers supplied their own ads, made by their corporate office, like Cherry Berry, Edible Arrangements and Firehouse Subs. So those looked good, but some of the others needed work. (Just visit my signature link for the flyer images I am referring to)

    I wish I could show the print quality on here...it's like a magazine. Very eye catching in person.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kent_Thompson
    One of the reasons why I pursued this idea was because I wanted to have something that wouldn't require me to compete on google or SEO and simply just to do business with local businesses that I go to all the time, who have real money and real budgets.

    Yeah I could build them a website, but what's after that? And lots of them already have websites (crappy ones, of course).

    I wanted something where I could literally walk into just about any local business, show them a flyer and they would instantly "get it" and possibly spend $100-200 per month on it, over and over, forever. I know this because some advertise in the local paper here and are already spending that kind of money. And the local paper here is terrible...but there is no other choice.

    If I could tap into that market, there is an unlimited supply of local businesses and I would never make a dent in the market. You basically don't have to worry about competition. (Well, you do, but it's not hard to avoid it just by picking the right zone).

    Well, so far the selling part hasn't been too hard. There was one business where I walked in, having had no previous connection with, asked for the owner, pitched the flyer, and walked out of the store 5 minutes later having swiped their credit card on my Square reader on my iphone.

    That was the only time that happened, but still, the point is that local businesses instantly see the value.

    I'm not saying door-to-door is the best way, but it was very effective for me. Like I said, getting one business on board wasn't too hard. But I had to fill the whole thing, on a deadline. So just based on the statistical numbers, I knew I had to reach like 30+ businesses in order to sell half. I just had to hustle it. Then there was a lot of follow up over the phone over the next 4-5 days following.

    This next time I am going to do a lot more phone calls and emails...I think it will save me a lot of time.

    I did sell one simply by filling out a contact us form on the business's website. That was probably the least effective, but it did work.

    The initial selling wasn't too bad. But the most important part of this is the responses of the coupons from residents, because that's what will ultimately keep the flyer in business. So that is why I'm trying to refine that aspect for my next zone.
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  • Profile picture of the author McKattry
    Just curious, but what do you do if someone signs up, and your area is filled?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kent_Thompson
    McKattry, good question. I have a feature built into the system where it will still take the registration but it will put them on a waiting list. My logic is that if someone is going to go through the steps to sign up, then I definitely want to capture their information and then follow up with them, rather than having an error message saying it's full.

    But in real life this has not been an issue so far. I suppose it could be later on when a zone is full and there are businesses wanting to sign up, but most of the time businesses will call first before they just sign up on their own. And once the flyer is full, then I have it printed, and would stop heavily promoting it, so that pretty much halts the signups. I'm expecting there to be a bit of turnover so even if a business wants on but they miss the deadline, I can just tell them that I can get them on the next one and they would take the spot of someone dropping off.

    The other thing that can be done is if there is a big waiting list that builds up, you can simply run a 2nd flyer to the same zone, staggered from the first one. For example, run the "A" flyer on the first week of the month and the "B" flyer on the 3rd week of the month.
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