Google Offers Green Industry Free Coupon Ads
June 16, 2008 
A number of nurseries are already offering coupons on the Google Maps system. Plantasia Gardens (www.plantasiagardens.com/nurserycoupon.html), for example, sports a $5 off coupon on Google Maps, as does Puckett’s Nursery (www.allenonline.com/Coupons1/PuckettsNursery-1.html). Ft. Collins Nursery (www.fortcollinsnursery.com/coupon/) is another industry business that offers a $5 off coupon on Google Maps. And Yamagamis Nursery (www.yamagamisnursery.com) offers coupons there from time to time, as well.
“Google’s goal is to connect searchers with the information they need, whether it’s halfway around the world or in their neighborhood,” says Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder and president. Given Google Maps’ current reach, the company’s offer to host coupons from any U.S. business at no charge is substantial. The site saw 23 million visits from Web users in June 2006 alone. They used Google Maps to get driving directions, generate maps of specific areas, and find businesses located in a particular town or zip code.
Where Are You?
The service also enables users to get additional information on a business–such as the nursery’s phone number, street address, hours of operation, directions to the business, Web and e-mail address, user reviews and similar info–by clicking on business names returned by the search. In practice, creating coupons for Google Maps is a snap.
Businesses simply sign up for a free account at Google Local Business Center (www.google.com/local/add), click on the “Coupons” tab and follow the online prompts to auto-generate coupons from a template in five or 10 minutes. No graphic design skills are necessary. And you don’t have to be a champion wordsmith. If you can keypunch in your business name and a few words about your coupon offer, Google Maps will do the rest for you. Moreover, a business does not even need a Web site to take advantage of the offer, since the Google Maps system auto-generates a company’s coupon anytime a user conducts a search for your type of business in your zip code.
“The coupon creation process is very simple, which suggests businesses will use it,” says Greg Sterling, an analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence, a market research firm that monitors local search advertising. The fact that 70 percent of American households now use the Web as an information source when shopping locally, according to a March 2005 study from the Kelsey Group, may also help convince businesses to take Google up on its offer. For established nurseries already in Google’s database, the coupons generally appear online in about a week or so, after Google calls to confirm that the business has actually in fact posted a coupon to its maps site. Brand new businesses or businesses not on Google’s radar may have to wait up to six weeks to see their coupons online. The reason: Google prefers to verify the existence of these businesses by mailing a postcard to the business address. The card includes a PIN the business can use online to activate their business listing on Google and trigger their coupon to go live.
While all the Google coupons generally take the same format–business name, a short headline describing the offer and a few lines of text offering specifics–companies can upload a small graphic to go with the coupon, such as a business logo or product pictures. Plus, each coupon also comes with its own unique identifier number generated by Google to help prevent coupon fraud.
This latest freebie from Google represents an enhancement of its aggressive strategy to build a comprehensive, easily accessible database of businesses throughout the U.S. and leverage that database to sell local advertising. Back in March 2005, Google first went live with the Google Local Business Center, which offers businesses the ability to get listed for free in Google’s database, as well as update their listing at any time.
Ultimately, Google hopes to profit from its free coupon program by eventually offering businesses the opportunity to feature those coupons on its primary search tool, the Google search engine. Google’s search offers businesses a much broader base of users than Google Maps, and it is already used by thousands of businesses as an advertising tool. In the meantime, the company is courting the business community with a number of other free promotional services, including:
– Google Webmaster Tools (GWT, https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html): Your company’s Web site can rank higher in Google’s search engine returns after you tweak the site’s design with these tools. Specifically, GWT will detail for your Webmaster why certain pages on your site are tougher for Google to track.
GWT will also identify the most popular search terms being used to find your site and allow you to identify and correct any site design “violations” that are preventing the site, or some of its pages, from being listed by Google.
– Google Search for Web Sites (www.google.com/searchcode.html#utm_medium=et&utm_source=bizsols&utm_campaign=searchcodeC): Instead of reinventing the wheel, you can use the same search technology Google uses for its search engine as a search engine for your own site. Price: free.
– Google Base (http://base.google.com/base/help/about.html?hl=en_US): With this service, Google allows your company to post virtually any type of marketing materials, job offers and similar fare to its free, online hosting service. Company PDFs, podcasts, text files and the like can all be uploaded. And each item can be categorized with search terms and attributes that make it easier for your intended audience to find materials.
– Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/): This program will enable your Web designer to ensure that every page on your Web site is as user-friendly as possible.
-Google Book Search (http://books.google.com): While this service is primarily designed for publishers, Book Search can also be used by companies offering extensive white papers, educational materials and similar promotional tomes. This Google service offers info-seekers a preview of a few pages of your book, as well as a link to where they can buy the book online.
Subscribe to eNewsletter
