How Creative Entrepreneurs Can Use Mobile Coupons To Grow Their Business

Mobile coupons are the perfect application for mobile phone advertising. The time when consumers need to use coupons is when they are out on the road. And it would be pretty impractical to cart your printer and computer everywhere (or even a newspaper and scissors) just to get coupons when you need them. And who plans in advance enough to pull and print those coupons at home first?

Large retailers and fast food restaurants are really taking advantage of the mobile coupon concept. Chipotle has signed up thousands of loyal customers in the past few weeks alone, all by word of mouth promotion. Even grocery stores are looking into ways of offering mobile coupons to their customers for the brands they 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.

Mobile coupons don't have to be for large retailers alone. 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 often just a matter of using creativity in thinking about the right opportunities to offer mobile coupons.

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?

For example, lets say you are a children's hair salon. Your customers are the parents of one or more children. Typically, they are out running errands with the entire family when they would stop in to get the kid's hair cut. They have probably already spent a lot of money running errands and it would be easy to put off the haircuts for another week. With a mobile coupon handy offering buy one haircut get the second half off, it might be just the incentive to stop in and get it done now.

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.

Most entrepreneurs are creative by nature, and mobile coupons can become a unique way to stand out from your competition.