Who Uses Coupons?

Do Wealthy Consumers Use Coupons?

As a direct mail marketing professional, I know having a strong offer on our client’s direct mail marketing in the form of a coupon or special is a major catalyst to entice new customers to try their establishment for the first time as well as getting current customers to come back and become loyal repeat customers. 

However, when speaking to many of our clients, it can be difficult for them to understand that offering a small discount is well worth it when comparing the discount amount to their customers lifetime value. Your customers lifetime value is the amount of money a customer is expected to spend at your business during the entire time they remain a customer. You can easily google “customer lifetime value” and read endless articles on the topic. 

Furthermore, there is still a misconception as to who uses coupons. For example, we often here from our clients in areas with higher incomes, that wealthier people aren’t looking for coupons or that their clients wouldn’t be interested in a coupon. 

 Of course, we know this is not the case based on previous data and many studies that have been done in the past. However, we wanted to refresh the topic with current relevant data and find out how many wealthy consumers use coupons compared to those with lower incomes. Furthermore, we wanted to see if and how these numbers changed based on the product/service being offered. E.g., Are more consumers using coupons for pizza than for auto repair service, HVAC services, etc. etc.  

Therefore, we decided to take four industries (in no specific order) Auto Repair, Pizza/Restaurants, General Dentistry & Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical) and conduct our own research to get the answers and provide updated current data to the old question. 

Below we will cover our key findings by industry. If you would like to dive deeper into our survey methodology, how we conducted our survey, parameters to be included in our survey as well as more details regarding these and many other key findings, we have provided a link at the bottom of this article to each specific consumer research and insights report entitled “Cracking The Code.” Cracking The Code is our full industry specific consumer research and insight report that answered these questions to consumers in addition to many others.  

 

 

Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical) 

We asked 5,818 homeowners: 

 If you received a coupon/special in the mail from a reputable home services provider offering a discount on services and/or product you need, would you use it? 

Results based on income:

 

 

Dental: 

We asked 5,842 consumers: 

If you received a coupon/special offer in the mail for dental services that you need, how likely are you to redeem that offer?

Results based on income:

 

As you can see based on each industry we analyzed, the consumer interest in coupons is high regardless of income and in many cases, those with higher incomes have reported they would use coupons more than those with lower incomes.  

The only outlier to this happens to be in the restaurant/pizzeria industry. Although over 50% reported using coupons for their favorite restaurants, this is the only industry analyzed where respondents with higher incomes reported less usage of coupons/specials than those with lower incomes. 

So quite simply it appears that some of the wealthier demographics are more interested in using coupons where the savings are greater. All in all, the answer to our original question is a resounding YES consumers use coupons and YES consumers with higher incomes use coupons. The challenge for you now is to develop a strategic coupon campaign that will appeal to the market you are targeting.  

Below you will find links to each industry specific consumer insight report that not only contains the details of our coupons research above but is chalk full of other key insights that will help you better understand the consumers you are targeting as prospective new customers.  

 Josh Davis, CRO