H&R Block At Home tax preparation software is one of the most commonly used tax tools available.

“Just being able to claim one more deduction that you didn’t know about could mean the difference of hundreds of dollars more in your pocket,” said Justin Bowen, CEO of CouponBuzz.com.

40% of American taxpayers do their own taxes each year. If a taxpayer underpays the federal government, it is highly likely that they are going to hear about it. But if a taxpayer overpays the federal government, well, Uncle Sam isn’t going to track them down and offer it back.

But, one car care company in particular provided us with a valuable lesson on how to capitalize on even the most innocuous Twitter trend in order to promote their business. The company in question is Meineke, and instead of adding yet another throwaway tweet about when it’s acceptable to cheat, their social media manager demonstrated a nifty way to use these silly trends to your business’ advantage.

Take a look:

When the link is clicked, visitors are taken to a Meineke coupon page that features a Twitter special coupon:

http://www.meineke.com/twitter/

And that, folks, is the correct way to capitalize on a Twitter trend, regardless of how silly it may or may not be. Granted, something like this would obviously not be appropriate if it was done in an insensitive manner, like, say during the outpouring of tweets concerning the Japanese earthquakes or the tornadoes that trashed various cities around the United States earlier this year.

However, if it’s a throwaway trend we’re talking about, something the #ItsOkayToCheatif trend clearly is, then tailoring a promotional tweet to fit such a trend is a great way to take advantage of all that Twitter noise. Now, can a coupon page actually be considered a signal to be acknowledged over the normal Twitter noise? Perhaps not, but it’s still an effective way to leverage something all the Twitter users are discussing.

Hey, even bored kids with not much to do need oil changes too, or at least, their friends who have cars do.

The survey found that in the past two years, consumer awareness of online coupon sites has increased significantly, with only 11 percent of online adults stating that they did not know what a coupon website was, compared to 16 percent in 2009 and 17 percent in 2008.

More than a third (34%) of online adults indicate they will opt to go to a different store and/or wait for a coupon to become available if they cannot find a coupon, compared to 30 percent and 27 percent in 2009 and 2008 respectively.

Coupon usage has begun to close the gap between genders, with more men using coupons than in previous years. Coupon website usage among male online shoppers increased across all age brackets, with the most notable increase from 16 percent last year to 24 percent this year in men ages 55 or older.

Additionally the survey looked at grocery coupons for the first time, find the majority of online shoppers 87 percent of men and 93 percent of women—have used coupons for grocery purchases. Despite a third (33 percent) of these adults reporting that they use coupon websites to find grocery coupons, nearly seven in 10 (69 percent) still use newspapers.

Other popular methods of finding grocery coupons included the postal mail (50 percent), on or inside product packages (43 percent), in-store displays (42 percent), with/on the back of receipts (30 percent), in emails (28 percent), in magazines (25 percent), on manufacturer or retailer websites (24 percent), with a retailer club card (15 percent) and/or on social networks (4 percent).

“With previous downturns in the economy, consumers were forced to take a more active role in monitoring their spending,” said Guy King, co-founder of RetailMeNot.com.

“A result of this increased attention has been that people are now more aware than ever of the opportunities to save money and are less willing to make a purchase without first checking for a lower price.”

"Personalized Deals is the biggest thing we’ve done since we launched Groupon," the company says. "While Groupon won’t look much different, sending different deals to different users transforms Groupon in four big ways."

If you thought Groupon was getting big, this feature might be the ticket to making it a household name. Along with the launch of an Android app last week, Personalized Deals is likely going to put Groupon on a lot more people’s mobile devices.

As a result of the Personalized Deals feature, users will start getting offers from a growing number of businesses, which are tailored to their location, preferences, and buying patterns.

"Groupon has become so popular with merchants that we can’t keep up with demand," Groupon says. "Over 35,000 merchants are queued to be featured on Groupon, and with 97% of our merchants wanting to be featured again, that list is only going to get longer. As a response to unmet demand, Groupon has become one of the most prolifically copied websites in the history of the Internet, with over 500 worldwide Groupon knockoffs appearing in the last 12 months."

There’s no question that the Personalized Deals feature is going to continue to attract businesses to Groupon. Customers have more of a reason than ever to use the service.

The coupon center offers manufacturer, Kroger brand and web-only coupons, allin one online center. Users can load offers onto their Kroger Plus Card or loyalty cards for other stores Kroger operates including City Market, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, Jay C, King Soopers, QFC, Ralphs and Smith’s.

"This new digital coupon center makes it even easier for our customers to save money," said Evan Anthony, vice president of corporate marketing and advertising for Kroger.

"Our customers asked to make online coupons easier for them to use and we listened. The time and money they can save is just the latest way Kroger delivers more value to its customers."

Users can select up to 150 coupons and then click the "Load Coupons to Card" option to digitally "clip" each coupon and add them directly to their Kroger Plus Card. Coupons will be available one hour after they are loaded onto a customer’s card. Each digital coupon loaded to the site is subject to an expiration date, generally within six weeks of being loaded to the digital coupon center.

Earlier this summer, Kroger launched its Summer of Savings program. Also available from Kroger’s homepage, the program includes an instant-win sweepstakes and special summer-themed coupons for customers. 
 

To try Savings.com Answers service, users ask a question about a product or a service they want to purchase. The service relies on the Savings.com community, who respond with answers and related coupons. Users are emailed with each new response to their question, and conversations are indexed so other shoppers can access the information.

"In a real-world shopping environment, people naturally consult friends and store clerks for advice, and we realized that the same real-time interaction was missing from the online shopping experience," said Loren Bendele, CEO of Savings.com.

"With the launch of Answers, online shoppers have a new, intuitive and extremely effective way to find and share the best deals and shopping advice on the Web."

Answers allows users and others to attach coupons and coupon codes to their responses. It offers online shoppers a forum to give and receive advice on all parts of their shopping experience, from finding the best deals to tips about planning a budget wedding.

The survey found 33 percent of respondents subscribed to receive emails/recipes/coupons directly from food manufacturers/companies, a six percent increase from 2008.

"Today’s consumers are using the Internet to not just find nutritional and safety information about the foods they eat, but to find the best value for their dollar," said Pat Conroy, Deloitte’s vice chairman and consumer products practice leader in the United States.

"If this recession has taught us anything, it’s that we don’t necessarily have to sacrifice quality for value — and consumers have figured that out by uncovering the wealth of product promotions and other marketing messages available on the Internet."

Nearly a quarter (23%) of respondents said they have visited a food company’s website to find out product information and 23 percent also made a food purchase because of something they read online.

Mobile devices are beginning to play a key role for shoppers as they make decisions on what to buy, especially when it comes to price.  Seven percent of people who took the survey have used their mobile/smart phone while in a store for a variety of reasons including to: compare prices (53 percent), get/redeem coupons/discounts (44 percent) and obtain nutritional information (28 percent). 

When it comes to bargain hunting, men are more aggressive and, use their mobile devices more than women, to compare prices (59 percent to 49 percent) and obtain/redeem coupons/discounts (53 percent to 38 percent).  Women, on the other hand, are more focused on using their mobile devices for receiving further nutritional information (36 percent to 18 percent).

"In today’s economy, consumers believe that they can get quality products without paying higher prices, whether that’s from store brands or national brands," said Conroy.

"Consumers realize their shopping choices have expanded giving them the ability to be more selective about their purchases based on a variety of criteria, including but not limited to, quality, quantity, taste, and of course, value.  The question companies are asking now is, ‘Will this more critical eye towards purchasing be the new norm or just a passing result of the economic downturn?’"
 

Seventy percent of coupons-using households get their coupons from newspapers. However, the Internet is a growing coupon resource. Over the last three years, the number of households that get their coupons online has increased by 46 percent.

Click rates trended higher for coupon emails, with an average of 17 percent for coupons redeemable online and 24 percent for coupons redeemable in-store.

"For marketers, the data behind our coupon study further validates how email coupons can and should be used to engage customers and drive traffic and sales to other channels," said Matt Seeley, president of Experian Marketing Services‘ .

 "Understanding the purchase drivers and triggers along with the channel preferences of unique customers is an essential element in building loyalty and engagement. Today’s consumers are multi-channel and marketers that acknowledge this will see greater return on their marketing spend."

Other highlights from the study include:

Two-thirds of American households use coupons, with the vast majority of them (87 percent) used to save money and 30 percent used to try a new product or service.

Eighty percent of online coupon mailings garnered higher transaction-to-click rates and transaction rates than the non-coupon campaigns. Of this group, 78 percent also had higher revenue per email.

More households are now using coupons at restaurants/fast food chains. Compared to 2006, there are now 9 percent more households redeeming coupons at restaurants.

Related Articles:

>10 Reasons Social Media Isn’t Replacing Email

>Holiday Shoppers Want Deals Even More Than They Did Last Year

>Majority Of Consumers Want To Interact With Brands Online

The categories that showed the biggest growth were: department stores, baby % kids, books & magazines, apparel & shoes, and health & beauty. In fact, only one category covered by Ebates showed decline – home décor.

According to the report, overall sales grew, although average order sizes shrank among a number of categories, like business  & office supplies, department stores, and computers & electronics. Ebates attributes this to store discounting and smaller individual order sizes.

"The growth of savvy online shopping continues to counter the downward retail trend overall," said Kevin Johnson, CEO of Ebates. "As these numbers demonstrate, shoppers continue to spend in places that deliver high value for their money. As more and more people, including wealthy Americans, realize the benefits of cash back and coupons, our shopping activity continues to far outpace spending offline."

Ebates found that users were focused and buying what they needed without much shopping around. This is a noteworthy observation, considering the broad range of online stores available to consumers through the site.

If you get nothing else from this data, you should get that people want coupons. So why not offer them? Google has 2 new templates for Display AdWords ads that cater to offering online coupons.
"Each of our new templates has a prominent slot for featuring a price or a discount, e.g., ’20% off,’ and has extra room for coupon codes," explains Christian Yee from Google’s Inside AdWords Crew. "As with any of our other templates, you can easily edit your ads on an ongoing basis to change the discount level, prices and any other customizable aspect."

Edits will have to wait for review from Google before they can go into effect, but that generally only takes from 2 to 4 business days.

Advertisers who want to utilize these templates simply need to:

1. Log in to their AdWords Account
2. Choose the Display Ad Builder option on any ad group
3. Choose Retail to find the templates

Online businesses that aren’t offering coupons should seriously consider doing so. When you can save your customers money, they’re more likely to spend more of it with you. It’s also a great way to build customer loyalty. Tips for creating good coupons here.