The Power of Coupons

I am excited that marketers seem to have discovered every college student's "secret": we're all broke! This semester, for the first time, I am excited to have been bombarded with coupons targeted specifically for college students.

Collegeclipper.com (which is in the process of becoming studentcoupons.com) offers coupons for Temple students for places ranging from Fresh Grocer to the Pearl movie theater, to the food trucks on campus. The site allows students to select the coupons they want and will actually text the coupons to students' cell phones! Similarly, campusspecial.com has been heavily distributing coupon books on Temple's campus with deals for local points of interest ranging from Qdoba to Hollywood tans. Aside from its physical coupon booklets, this company also offers both printable and text message coupons from its website. In addition, McDonald's employees, riding on Segways, recently distributed coupon booklets on Temple's campus, offering many "buy one get one free"coupons on a wide range of its products.

I think these coupons are brilliant marketing because they target a population that is both on a tight budget but also one that historically has a higher percentage of disposable income than other segments of the population. They present a win-win situation: students save money on things they want and need, while participating companies benefit from student business being funneled their way.

Honestly, at this phase of my life, if you offer me the chance to save money, then you are much more likely to get my business than your competitors--even if I may prefer your competitors to you; if you help me out, I will help you out by patronizing your business. In this way, I also see these coupon-based promotions as good PR.

I have already used more than 10 of the coupons I have received as part of these marketing initiatives, and I look forward to taking advantage of more of these deals in the future.