Coupons can act as advertisements for your business, but advertisements that lead customers straight to your products–and which make them pretty inexpensive. Nearly 90% of consumers claim to use coupons, and during the past several years since the onset of the recent financial crisis (as well as rising cost of fuel), online coupons alone rose almost 40% in popularity. E-coupons are a brilliant way to stay ahead of the curve of internet commerce, but if you think coupons may be the next marketing move for your company, there are plenty of ways to make your already innovative coupons more effective.

E is for Email, E is for Effective.

A great way to gain followers of your business and regular customers is through opt-in email mailing lists. People will get news about your company, your products–and they won’t forget if they are hearing from you once a week or so. What does this have to do with coupons, you ask? If you make it so your coupons are only available in the newsletter, you can keep customers’ attention to your business: customers who really need your coupons will also be updated about your new location, the midsummer sale and your business’s philanthropy and community services. They can forward your coupon to friends, even also print out emailed coupons to bring into your store. If you are going to require coupon recipients to sign up for your newsletter, though, you should try to always offer at least one coupon (even a small one) in every issue.

How Much Off?

Make it clear to your customers that the coupon is worth taking the extra time to use by showing them just how significant their savings will be. A good way to do this is, for less expensive items (under, say $25) do not give a percentage off, give a dollar amount: say “$5.00 off!”, not “20% off”. For more expensive items with considerable savings, percentages are fine.

Don’t forget that you can also use coupons for “buy one get one”, rebate and other types of great deals.

Team Up.

This is especially easy if you have total control of your web store’s design and transactions. You can use coupons to cross market with other businesses willing to partner with you in a joint marketing campaign. Find a business that offers a complement product to the one you are promoting with coupons. Give access to the online coupon for their product on the page where you sell yours, and have them do the same.

Another way to use third parties as a great coupon marketing tool is to get your company onto “coupon-clipping websites”, where businesses post coupons for customers to print off; some popular coupon sites are Groupon.com, where businesses post coupons and deals on Facebook, Twitter and other microblog newsfeeds for customers to clip for themselves, repost and forward to friends; CouponClippingMom.com, a blog style site where coupons for various businesses are shared as individual posts (best for chain, not local businesses); and CouponCabin.com, which offers online and printable coupons (separately from each other) for businesses ranging from the local to national scale. You can link to them on your own website, blog, or online store, and customers across town or beyond the sea will be able to find them.

Looks Matter.

You want your coupons to be as eye-grabbing and attractive as they can be. Make them stand out but remember that visual, non-verbal assets of graphic design can say just as much as the words you lay over them. The coupon’s overall design should be clean, not cramped with too much or vacant with not enough information. Noticeable colors are great as long as they are not an eyesore, and large, bold fonts work best, though the most pronounced words should be the ones that will first grab attention. Some of the most effectively designed coupons feature a cleanly drawn, realistic illustration or a photograph of the product being offered.

Social media marketing is one of the hottest topics in the online advertising world right now. You hear people in Las Vegas throwing out all these buzzwords in reference to the marketing medium. You’ve heard of people raving about it and attributing it to their businesses’ successes. So how exactly does it work? Why are people praising this form of advertising? How can a business use it to take their sales revenues to another level?

You can find the answers to these questions and more through the following three benefits of social media marketing:

Awareness

From a consumer’s perspective, you want your information and updates right away. You want to hear what’s going on as they’re happening. While newspapers and television broadcasts have been the norm, these same companies in Las Vegas have been utilizing social media to get the information to the masses in a much quicker fashion. These news companies resort to tools such as Facebook and Twitter to keep audiences updated right then and there in the moment.

For more sales-oriented businesses, these social media outlets can be used to announce seasonal sales, arrival of new items or services, and also coupon codes to entice consumers to check out their site and make a purchase.

Social media marketing is quite powerful, and when companies are constantly informing their consumers with valuable information and services through these outlets, then the consumers create a bigger buzz amongst themselves.

Networking

The groups of people gathering together in these online hubs are the fuel for social media marketing. If people of similar interests and intentions were not involved, this online revolution would not exist.

As a result of recent events or news for particular niches, people will want to discuss about this amongst fans of these niches. Word spreads through forums, wall posts, and blog comments. Really successful social media marketing campaigns experience this viral effect, and the best part of it all is the price tag of this type of marketing – it’s free.

Business Leads

The buzz created through the people interested in that particular niche can turn into leads or traffic towards a business’ site. The potential for sales increases the more a product or service is talked about.

As long as discussions amongst peers in a niche continue, then there should be a steady flow of traffic to these business sites. It is up to the businesses to maintain the content on their social media outlets in order to keep the traffic flowing. More consistent traffic equals more consistent sales.

Studying small business marketing case studies can be a valuable resource and discovery process for your own Las Vegas business or company. I’ve take some time to gather some links to small business marketing case studies for your review:

Business Case Studies, Small Business Success Stories – SmartBiz.com

Articles on branding, re-branding, internet marketing link partnerships, business strategies and case studies.

Small Business Case Studies – Leveraging Twitter! – The Marketing Studio

Over the past year, more and more businesses of all shapes and sizes, are investing time to explore what all the hype is behind “Twitter.”  What many have discovered is that this microblogging phenomenon presents a great opportunity for their companies.  learn more.

8 Visual Case Studies for Fun Marketing Materials! – smbmarketingguide.com

B2B Social Media – The Business.com Case Study

As 2008 unfolded, our team at Business.com closely monitored the explosion of social media interest in the B2B marketing world. learn more.

Successful Email Marketing Case Study – smallbusinessarena.com

“I have recently had a successful email marketing campaign for one of my ecommerce sites. I will share the story of this email marketing campaign as a case study….” read more.

Small Business Marketing Case Study: How We Built Our Business on $200 – Ezine Articles

We started our business with $200. When we opened our bank account, we each deposited a whopping $100. That was the only capital investment we eve made. Everything else that has ever flowed into that account has been earned – albeit, sometimes it seemed as though by rubbing 2 sticks together. read more.

Marketing Case Studies – Marketingprofs.com

Some of these cover larger businesses and companies but still a great Case Study read!

Low-Budget Online Marketing for Small Business - Paperback book from Amazon.com

by Holly Berkley (Author) “What’s the difference between a $100,000 online marketing campaign and a $1,000 campaign?…” (more)

Social Media Marketing Case Study: Smartkit Online Games

Many companies, large and small, are struggling to discover the best way to begin social media marketing efforts. This case study features a small business social media marketing effort with TopRank Online Marketing and online games site, Smartkit. read more.

Overview of Twitter

Twitter is a privately funded startup with offices in the SoMA neighborhood of San Francisco, CA. Started as a side project in March of 2006, Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices.

In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them (via “tweets”) and access information via Twitter as it happens—from breaking world news to updates from friends. See what people are doing right now. See what Michael Gazzano and Perkolate are doing right now on Twitter.

You can send your own “tweets” using the Twitter.com website or via a third-party application such as Twhirl or Snitter.Your tweets are displayed on your own personal public profile page, on the home page of each of your “followers”, and in the public timeline on Twitter. There are also iPhone and Blackberry applications that allow you to monitor Twitter, create tweets and respond to tweets.

Importance of Twitter

By using Twitter, you expose yourself, and your company’s products and service to a world-wide audience. You have the ability to broadcast tidbits of information (business or personal) or provide links to new articles and headlines. You can promote your business or helpful articles and links.

More information on Twitter

• What is Twitter – from Wikipedia
• Twitter in Plain English – YouTube
• Twittermaina: 140+ More Twitter Tools!
• Top 40 Twitter Tools
• 11 Useful Twitter Tools That Don’t Require Your Password
• 10 Essentials Twitter Tools for Business
• Twelve Twitter Tools, Tips, Tricks, Techniquest and Twoubles
• 25+ Incredibly Useful Twitter Tools and Firefox Plugins

You may have heard of Social Networking before but do you know what it really means and what impact it could have in growing your business?

In case you don’t know what Social Networking means, I thought I’d start by defining it. Social Networking is the grouping of an individual person into specific groups via websites.

On Social Networking websites, you can create a profile, upload your photo, fill in your stats (personal and/or professional), state your interests, then find other members that have some sort of common thread to add to your own personal networking community. You can find and add contacts that have similar business interests, live in your zip code, connect with people you went to high school or college with – create your own online community.

Here are some free Social Networking websites you should definitely join:

• facebook
• myspace
• LinkedIn
• twitter
• jigsaw

Once you have your profiles set up, search for people you know, or search for people you don’t yet know but that have similar interests and add them to your networks. Participate in these online communities, let your contacts know what you’re up to periodically, check in with people, socialize and network!

Benefits to Social Networking:

• You will make new business contacts in Las Vegas
• You’ll meet up with people from your past that can help market your business or company
• Provides you and your company visibility on the internet
• Gives you an awareness of what is happening in your community
• Your contacts can learn about your business which give your business “mindshare”