PC&D MAGAZINE
Creating a coupon strategy
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From Volume 25, Issue 6 - June 2001
Feature
Know who to target and what to offer.
by: James Gormley, News Editor
 
 Related Information
  Tips for coupon success

Experienced fast-lube operators know that coupons are often the best way to attract new customers and create a loyal customer base.

But many operators have are unsure about the best coupon strategy to adopt for their fast-lube businesses. For example, what offers work best? Which design is most effective? What is the best way to distribute coupons?

The answers to these questions depend on a number of factors, including: the size of the community where the fast lube is located; whether the lube offers ancillary services like carwashing; and the size of the owner’s budget.

Further complicating matters, operators now have more options for coupon distribution than ever before. Not only are coupons found in direct mailings, value-pack envelopes and in local newspapers, coupons can also be found online, printed on of grocery receipts or even on the back of ATM withdrawl slips.

Marriage made in heaven?

Like most people, potential fast-lube customers have little free time, so it’s important to grab their attention and get your message across quickly. Whether your coupons will be sent via direct mail or will appear in the morning paper, marketing experts who study coupon design offer these suggestions:

•Keep the message and design simple;

•Use powerful headlines;

•State who you are and what you do;

•Clearly state the discount you are offering;

•Avoid percentage-off discounts (they suggest no real value);

•Use color if possible;

•Use expiration dates; and

•Make sure the coupon looks like a coupon.

“Fast-lube customers are very accustomed to coupons,” says Joni Bloom, a regional marketing manager for Valvoline Instant Oil Change, Lexington, KY. “There are several ways to present coupons and all can be very effective.”

Valvoline relies on “marriage mail” to blanket a particular region with coupons to attract new customers and “solo mail” to target loyal customers.

Marriage mail refers to packages of coupons sent together in an envelope to all households in a designated area. Solo mail refers to a letter, postcard or coupon sent directly from the business to its loyal customers. A number of lube-software programs generate lists of previous customers especially for this purpose.

“The cost of marriage mail per 1000 is much cheaper, but if possible, it’s a good idea to guarantee exclusivity in the lube category,” Bloom suggests. Marriage mail distributors sometimes offer their customers the opportunity to be an exclusive service provider, meaning no other fast-lube would be able to send a coupon in the same package as yours.

“We also use solo mailings to send our loyal customers coupons and other special offers directly,” Bloom says.

Plan for success

Creating mailing lists involves strategic planning. For example, a lube owner might want to send a coupon to his or her most loyal and lucrative customers as a reward one week and a completely different offer to those customers who typically only purchase the basic oil change the next week. The goal in each case is different.

For those lube shops with other services like carwashing or detailing, another option is to offer specials that will encourage customers to use two or even three services in one visit.

“Most operators are usually concerned with how they can attract new customers,” says Brian Bath, director of sales for Innovative Control Systems (ICS), Nazareth, PA, a company that manufactures software that can create coupon mailing lists based on a number of criteria. “And so they often don’t think about getting their loyal customers from one profit center to another.”

Bath also suggests that operators on occasion might want to narrow their mailing lists down to target a specific type of customer.

“If you track your customers’ spending habits, you might decide not to waste your time and money mailing coupons to those customers that never spend more than $20,” he says. “Then the next month, you might want to target those same people with an offer to get them to upgrade to a higher package. That’s the advantage of having a good database to work from.
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