Posts filed under 'Coupons, Deals and Discounts'
Walmart is wasting no time during the first days of the busy holiday shopping season. As MobileMarketer reports, the retail giant has launched its Holiday Mobile Alerts program for shoppers who want to receive exclusive information about gifts, ideas, and special offers that the store is offering. As MobileMarketer reports,
“The mobile effort, introduced without fanfare, targets shoppers with the promise to deliver them early news of bargains in-store or online at Walmart. It is also an opportune attempt by Walmart to build a database of mobile consumers for marketing offers and deals” (read the rest of the article…)
Walmart emphasizes the ease of signing up for the alert service. By simply dialing #WMT on a mobile phone, Walmart shoppers enable their phones to receive the SMS alerts. Alerts include gift ideas, recipes, and product news and reviews. Subscribers will receive three alerts per week and the alerts run not only for the duration of the holiday shopping period, but also will be sent periodically throughout the year to subscribers.
In addition to Holiday Mobile Alerts, Walmart also offers a shopping-trip enhancing iPhone application, as well as iPhone widgets for direct linking to the walmart.com homepage.
- JPK
December 3rd, 2008
Jackpot Rewards, a subscription-based gaming and shopping company, is offering its prospective members a free 7-day trial. While the service is usually $12 per month, capitalizing on their free trial program is a great way for potential new members to get involved with the company. As Jackpot Rewards explains on their website, there are three important rewards that are instantly received after signing up for a subscription: winning, saving, and giving.
Jackpot Rewards gives subscribers three weekly opportunities to win a $145 Million Super Jackpot, as well as weekly $1 Million Jackpot drawings and a weekly Guaranteed Prize Winner drawing, which gives away a prize rather than a jackpot. The company essentially hosts a lottery where they randomly select six numbers. 
Jackpot Rewards members are automatically entered into each contest with six numbers that they have selected. If a contestant’s six numbers match the six numbers drawn, they then win the Super Jackpot. If the contestant matches two or more numbers, they are automatically entered into the $1 Million Jackpot drawing. In addition, for each number matched, the contestant receives ten entries into the Guaranteed Prize Winner contest. Super Jackpot drawings are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while the weekly Jackpot drawings are held on Saturdays and the Guaranteed Prize drawings are on Sundays. Members can also form Jackpot Groups and align with other members to increase their chances of winning prizes.
Subscribers also can instantly save money with Jackpot Rewards’s Cash Back Shopping program. Jackpot Rewards explains that retailers pay the company commission for generating and referring sales and in turn, Jackpot Rewards gives their commission back to their customers. For example, if they use Jackpot Rewards as a portal to shop at Target Online, customers receive 10% cash back from their total purchase. Jackpot Rewards also hosts a Deal of the Day, where they greatly discount a certain item for members. Over 550 merchants and 20 million items are accessible to purchase through the Jackpot Rewards portal.
Finally, Jackpot Rewards maintains a dedication to donating money to charity. The company itself was founded around principles of charity; born in a strategic planning meeting discussing ways to help poor and at risk children. The company offers a program for charities that actively provides a different kind of reward. When a charity partners with Jackpot Rewards, they receive both a $10 donation and 25% of the supporter’s monthly membership fees. Since Jackpot Rewards does not set a cap on the amount of money that can be earned by the charity, the program offers, as they say on their website, unlimited earning potential.
Jackpot Rewards is an easy opportunity for gamers, shoppers, and charities to earn money for themselves and their charities. The free trial that the company is offering enables new members and subscribers to try Jackpot Rewards out and potentially win something in the process. Between enticing weekly jackpots and practical daily savings, Jackpot Rewards offers something for every member and is a great way to both give and receive.
November 11th, 2008
The key to effective mobile coupon marketing is showing consumers that they can be and are relevant enough to be used locally. While looking for mobile coupon sites to add as entries to Code.com, I came across GreatLocalCoupons.com; a coupon site that, as the name suggests, provides consumers with great local coupons.
The site primarily is a regionally organized database for more traditional, promotional coupons and offers, but it features an option for sending and storing coupons on mobile devices. While the site doesn’t actively send mobile coupons to a user’s phone, it still uses the user’s phone as the tool for utilizing such coupons. More importantly, GreatLocalCoupons actually promotes local businesses and offers. A search of “Boston” on the site yields a pizza/calzone savings at a pizzeria down the street from the Code/Codespotter office. A map is also included so that users can see visually where the savings are.
In addition to their coupon offerings, the agency facet of GreatLocalCoupons also has some value for other companies. It isn’t shy to extend advice to other mobile advertisers and marketers. In a series of blog-style postings and advice pieces, the site extends their thoughts and musings on effective trends in the mobile marketing industry.
While the site itself doesn’t offer anything that is uniquely groundbreaking to the world of mobile coupons, GreatLocalCoupon’s greatest strength is that it capitalizes on proximity-based coupons and offers, which is a key trait for using coupons effectively. Savings that are accessible to users are the ones which they will capitalize on, and GreatLocalCoupons knows it, sticks to it, and does a great job doing so.
October 23rd, 2008
If there was one week this year for a health-conscious Codespotter to take a break from counting calories and eating nutritiously, this would be it. This week marks the start of the yearly McDonald’s Monopoly contest; a wildly popular instant win game that boasts, among other things, daily $100,000 cash prizes. The game’s premise is simple: selected McDonald’s menu selections come with game pieces that contain a unique 10-digit code (a “dice roll”). Each code represents a Monopoly property and a winning combination of properties yields a prize. For example, collecting the green properties of Pacific, North Carolina and Pennsylvania Avenue wins $25,000.
Players can play the game either in store, online, or via text messaging. In store instant-win prizes include McDonalds food and other smaller instant win prizes. By entering these game piece codes online at PlayatMcD.com, you can also instantly win cash (anywhere from $50 to $100,000), Shell Gift Cards, or 25 MyCokeRewards points. To play with text messaging, register your phone online and then text game codes to 96363.
Buying and eating more of those selections gives you a higher chance to win prizes. 2 pieces, plus one bonus piece, are found on Medium and Large Premium Roast Coffee (excluding iced coffee and specialty coffee), McSkillet Burritos, Southern Style Chicken Sandwiches, Big Macs, Premium Chicken Sandwiches, Large French Fries, Medium & Large Fountain Drinks, and Hash Browns.
McDonalds Monopoly is wildly popular and certainly delivers a great deal of prizes. An online ticker keeps track of winning prizes that are redeemed and when I started writing this post, the number of winners was around 17,000. It is currently at 19, 271 (edit: The game is currently at 171,005. 2:07PM, 10/08/08). Literally there are people winning almost every second. These are pretty good odds and the contest is definitely worth a play or two. The contest will be running at a McDonalds near you from October 7, 2008 to November 3, 2008. Rules and conditions can also be found on PlayatMcD.com.
October 7th, 2008
According to this post on Fly The World, self service DVD rental provider Redbox is offering a promotion in August where new members can recieve free movie rentals on Mondays and Wednesdays. Redbox is already cheap (movies are $1 per day); easy (transactions are completed strictly through a debit or credit account); and convenient (Redbox machines are usually recommended for businesses that cater to 15,000 people or more weekly, so your local supermarket is a prime candidate.) By signing up for the service via email or SMS, new members are awarded a free movie rental. As if a free movie isn’t enough incentive to join, Redbox ups its own ante with this month’s promotion. For the month of August, SMS users are texted a new promotional Code weekly, good for one free movie. Sign up for Redbox today and feel free to let us know how your rentals work out.
August 12th, 2008
8coupons is an e-coupon web site for the greater Manhattan area that sends the coupons you select right to your mobile phone via text messaging. The 8coupons web site has an easy organized format with categories of “Top 8 NYC Deals”, “Restaurants”, “Entertainment”, “Beauty and Spa”, “Services”, and “Shopping”. To be honest, the “Entertainment” and “Service” sections don’t have too much to offer, and the “Shopping” section is pretty random- but the “Beauty and Spa” section has some great-sounding deals, and the “Restaurant” section is fantastic.
As a temporary resident of New York City, there are many obstacles when it comes to going out in the city. Mainly, choosing a restaurant or bar out of the plethora, and having the money to actually go. 8coupons.com is a big help when it comes to both finding new food-spots and saving money.
The restaurant section really is where most of the value lies- obviously not for fine dining, but if you want a free drink with purchase at a trendy Greenwich Village falafel spot, or an 8-cent hot dog in the Meat Packing District, you should definitely check this out. And unlike a lot of mobile coupon sites where you have to sign up in advance or download something onto your phone, 8coupons makes it really simple to get the coupons- just click on the “text coupon” link for the deal, and a text-coupon is immediately sent to your phone. All you have to do is flash the coupon at your place of choice, and you get the discount!
There are also other ways to search besides the top categories. You can click on keywords, search by neighborhood, or by a search bar at the top of the site. There’s even an option to sign up as an “Ocho Loco” member to be eligible for exclusive discounts and receive weekly updates as well as contribute your own coupon finds. Try it out at www.8coupons.com.
-RS
August 7th, 2008
We found this interesting IKEA offer this morning on Mobile Marketer. IKEA is working with bCode to create a mobile loyalty program. According to the article, the company is aiming to “start a dialogue with interested consumers.” After agreeing to join the program and texting IKEA1 TO 30364, members recieve weekly IKEA news, coupons, alerts, and games. Coupons can then be brought to IKEA and physically printed from a kiosk. Marketing specialist Casey Crook is optimistic of the offer.
“Your mobile phone is such a personal device – you carry it everywhere with you,” Ms. Crook said.
“Our IKEA Mobile program has allowed us to communicate one-to-one with our customers about store sales, events and activities, but it’s the bCode solution which has allowed us to drive customer traffic into the store,” she said.
Read the rest of the article here.
-JPK
July 22nd, 2008
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