Valpak Takes Coupons Mobile
Shared mailer Valpak has optimized its Web site for mobile display and has begun to distribute mobile coupons.
The company reportedly soft-launched a mobile coupon distribution feature in early March. Using that platform, mobile users can surf to the Valpak Web site, search for coupons keyed to merchants in their ZIP code, and download coupons to their handsets. Businesses accepting the coupons are able to either scan it with a reader or input the discount code from the mobile screen.
While still sending its blue envelopes filled with offers to more than 45 million households annually, Valpak, has begun taking steps to broaden its distribution channels beyond direct mail. Besides the mobile optimization, the company has partnered with online coupon destination RetailMeNot.com to offer printable in-store coupons.
Rival coupon providers MoneyMailer and Valassis property Redplum also signed printable deals with RetailMeNot.com, a Melbourne Australia-based portal that receives more than 9 million visitors monthly. Users can locate local coupon deals using Google maps, then print out those they’re interested in.
Use of printable online coupons is growing: A recent study by online ad network Burst Media found that 16% of coupon users now seek them online, as opposed to 3.8% in 2002, and 70% said they would use an Internet coupon.
Nevertheless, the adoption of coupons directed at mobile handsets may eclipse that Web-coupon growth rate in the near future, and Valpak’s example seems to bear witness to that success.
Analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling market research reported in a blog post last month that while PC-based downloads from Valpak’s standard Web site were running at about one in four visitors, the company said that on average every mobile site visitor was selecting or downloading four coupons—up from the two per capita downloads at the March platform launch.
“Though mobile users of the site are at this stage a much smaller group [than those downloading to PCs], their engagement is striking,” Sterling said. It’s evidence of the demand for coupons in a mobile context and the potential performance of those offers.”
