Dog food coupons are best described as tickets given by makers and marketers of dog food to potential buyers of such food, with a promise that the presentation of such coupons at the point of purchase for the dog food would entitle the person presenting them to certain discounts.
Why dog food coupons are given
The giving of dog food coupons to potential buyers of the dog food is a marketing strategy. Effectively deployed, it can lead – at the very least – to the recipients giving the dog food brands in question a try. And the makers of the food coupons, being confident of their products, know that once the recipients give their products a try, they – at least some of them – will most probably ‘get hooked’ to them.
Identifying recipients for dog food coupons
Normally, the identification of recipients for dog food coupons follows a lead generation process. The idea is to identify people who are likely to be in need of buying dog food (dog pet owners, managers of security firms that make use of dogs and so on). That is a better bet than sending the coupons to random addresses of people – some of whom may actually find the idea of owning a dog, let alone buying dog food, deeply offensive.
There are also some cases where the dog food coupons may be offered as cut-outs in magazines that deal with pet (or more specifically with dog) issues, which are likely to be widely read by the people who make the target market for the products.
Once the people to whom the dog food coupons are to be send are identified, what follows is that a number of them will usually decide to take advantage of coupons, and that a number of those will like the product and become regular customers. So the whole thing is a ‘game of numbers.’
Administering dog food coupons online
Seeing that more and more people are turning to the Internet for their shopping, we are also seeing a considerable number of dog food makers also deciding to offer their coupons online. Of course, the printed ticket model for administering dog food coupons is largely unsuitable for the Internet-based dog food vendors. Online, what we tend to see are ‘dog food coupon codes.’ These are alphanumeric codes, offered through email to people who seem to have potential to buy dog food (or posted on pet-care websites visited by such people). People are then told that entering the codes at dog food store checkout point would give them access to the discounts contained in the codes. Still, the underlying presumptions are the same: that the code will get some people to try the said dog food variety, and that a number of those people will get impressed by the dog food variety and become regular buyers of it.