Literally you can find coupons for almost anything you need these days and as the growth of mobile commerce continues to rise we will only see more and more of this. Today Groupon and Foursquare established a partnership where you can get daily Groupon Deals by checking into places. It was only a matter of time before Foursquare and one of the webs most popular coupon and deals site joined forces. Last week I used my daily deal at Chili’s where all I had to do was check in at the restaurant and then show the waitress that I was “checked-in” and I got free chips and salsa. I don’t know if you’ve ever had their chips and salsa but they’re awesome.

What I’m getting at is the fact that coupons are much more easily accessible now that mobile devices and businesses are interacting and offering their customers what they want, where they want it (on their phone), whenever they want it. Mobile is the best venue for offering deals and coupons because of a number of reasons. For one it is a much greener approach to buying and selling. There is no need to print out deals and present them at stores and businesses anymore because you can simply put them up on your phone and do the same. I know my mother has sat at the breakfast table drinking her coffee on a Sunday morning and tediously cut a number of coupons out of the local paper in order to save a few dollars on her next grocery visit. Eliminate that process by uploading them onto your phone. It’s becoming even easier when you allow google to access your location because they can offer you search results that are targeted in your area.

WAKE UP CALL: Local businesses should be looking at this as a tremendous opportunity to create a mobile campaign for their companies. It only makes sense for a local business to drive more traffic to their store by creating a mobile website that links to a coupon that is only accessible by using the mobile phone. I sat in on a webinar the other day by a few big business owners and was presented by Mobile Commerce Daily and the hot topic of mobile was debated and discussed mostly regarding the use of mobile strategy and Bricks and Mobile Strategy. I asked a question to see how small businesses could integrate mobile commerce even if they weren’t familiar with eCommerce (buying and selling online). They told me that most small businesses they know are using mobile websites and mobile commerce are using them more along the lines of coupon clubs. Say you’re a local Daddy Joe’s Liquor Store and you want to develop a mobile website to drive more traffic to your store. Create a Mobile Website that has your landing page state a call to action such as “find great deals and join our coupon club below!” and you have one of your pages be a list of coupons that can be presented at the time of purchase 1 per customer per visit. This enables you to develop a relationship with your customers that encourages them to come back and use that coupon again at your store another day. You give people a reason to use your mobile website and create that “coupon club” experience.

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Tags: Blog, Business, grow socially, iPhone, lead generation, Marketing, Mobile, mobile marketing, multi-channel marketing, online marketing, QR codes, smart phone, smm