MobiQpons Inc. today announced that its Mobile Coupons application “Coupons for Shopping -MobiQpons ” is now available for consumers to download from its website http://mobiqpons.com/

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Brooklyn Center-based Caribou Coffee used a mobile marketing couponing company called Cellfire to send coupons this year for its new Acacia Organic Blend and Northern Lite Latte.

“We looked at mobile marketing as a way for us to drive store traffic and gain trial for a new product launch,” marketing manager Jake Miller said. “If we can get trial, we know there is a good chance that guest will come back again.” He declined to give details on the results but said Caribou would use mobile marketing coupons again.

MixMobi, a Plymouth mobile marketing startup, is launching a technology platform that lets retailers build coupons that can be “tweeted” on the social media site Twitter, which appears on cell phones as well as computers.

MixMobi co-founder Lisa Foote is letting small marketing agencies experiment with the technology to work out the bugs before the launch. Sprout.mn in Minneapolis designed a coupon for the Seward Co-op advertising 50 cents off at the deli this weekend.

“I think the consumer definitely wants mobile couponing,” she said. “I think people are really hungry for deals, and more than 90 percent of Americans carry cell phones.”

To be sure, technologists have heralded mobile marketing coupons for several years with little effect.

But a sudden surge of interest by big- name retailers and packaged-goods companies, coupled with better technology, is creating buzz for the mobile marketing coupon this year.

Only 3 percent of consumers used a mobile marketing coupon in 2008, but more than half of them knew about them, Forrester Research, a technology consultancy, reported this year.

The recession has advanced coupon usage in all its forms, including online. Digital coupons were the fastest growing Web site category last November, with visitors to coupon sites up 32 percent over October 2008, said comScore Inc., another technology research company.

Put it all together, and advertisers see cell phones as 277 million tiny electronic billboards in every pocket or purse.

“It’s a big area of interest these days. I’ve been getting tons of calls about this,” said Evan Neufeld, a senior analyst for mobile communications for comScore Inc.

Mobile marketing coupons have become a buzzword inside the big packaged-goods companies, Neufeld said. “They all say they want a mobile strategy,” he said. These companies will insure consumers see more ads, he said.

The popularity of smart phones, with their larger, made-for-the-Web screens, is driving the trend, too. Coupons look better on bigger screens, marketers say.

Although smart phones like the Apple iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry make up only 17 percent of all cell phones, handset makers are introducing a new breed of cheaper smart phones this year.

Cellfire Inc. in San Jose, Calif., which did the coupons for Caribou Coffee, said the cell phone has become the new shopping list. It does work for grocery chains like Krogers and Safeway.

“The phone is really starting to emerge as more of a lifestyle device instead of just a communications device,” said Dan Kihanya, vice president of consumer marketing.

SmartSource, published by News America Marketing, might be the largest test of the mobile marketing coupon yet.

SmartSource will instruct people to text the word “coupon” to a number. Once they agree to give up their e-mail address, they can select up to 13 coupons for brand names such as Huggies, Trident and Tyson on their phone browser. Those selections are sent to their e-mail and must be printed out, which is an additional step.

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Looking for ways to save money during tight times, but don’t want to spend the time searching through the newspaper looking for coupons? Well you’re in luck… The future of coupons has arrived in an easy, organized application that can be downloaded straight from your Smartphone.

Target has announced the first ever scannable coupon program for mobile phones. The program will send coupons to your mobile device that can be scanned at checkout. The opt-in program will provide Target shoppers with a customized webpage on their mobile phones, with all offers scannable at checkout via a single barcode.

Target is the first to venture into the coupon program, but there will be many to follow. Coupons will benefit businesses and customers alike–promoting spending while saving money for consumers. In addition, the convenience and “Green” factor of digital coupons, particularly mobile coupons, make them especially appealing to consumers today.

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“Savvy consumers will check 8coupons.com before they head out to eat, drink, shop, or do anything in their neighborhood”, said Landy Ung, CEO and Co-founder of 8coupons.com. “There’s a high chance that we can help shoppers get more for their money and let them know about a great nearby deal that they wouldn’t otherwise know about. 8coupons.com aggregates thousands of mobile coupons and local deals throughout the country.”

The newly designed site has been upgraded in the following areas.

Nationwide: – There are now deals all over the country, not just New York City.

Location Based: When a user visits 8coupons.com, the map on the homepage will automatically populate the Top 8 most popular deals based on his or her IP address. This ensures that anyone who visits the site will see the deals that are most relevant to them specifically. The Top 8 deals will change dynamically as the user moves the map around to different locations, zooms in on a specific street, or narrows down the deals by sub-categories such as restaurants, entertainment, beauty & spas, services and shopping.

More Deals: The deals on 8coupons.com now come from several different sources.

* Exclusive Mobile Coupons – Since launching in 2007, 8coupons.com has offered a self-service mobile coupon platform for small-businesses in New York City. The platform is now available nationwide, and to celebrate, 8coupons is offering an opportunity for any business to try the service free for 100 days (an $888 value!). Businesses can sign up here and use the promo code “MobileCoupons” at checkout to receive a credit of $888.

* User Submitted Deals – Consumers can use this form to tell everyone about the specials at their local bar or their local sandwich shop (or accountant, or dentist, etc…). To date, there have been over 100,000 user shared deals on 8coupons.com.

* Sponsored listings – 8coupons.com has partnered with Valpak, Money Mailer, and RedPlum’s SuperCoups as well as with several local bloggers and content partners to add over 50,000 local deals across the country.

The current economy and heightened demand for deals has sparked the entire industry, but 8coupons.com specifically is the fastest growing deals site on the Internet. Over the past year, and according to Google Analytics, traffic has grown 869% resulting in 770,345 unique visitors in November, 2009.

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Margento will bring its proven transaction platform to the 50-50 joint venture, as well as its patented Data-Over-Voice (DOV) technology, while arvato services will invest in the JV and contribute its extensive expertise in Marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Finance services.

“We are excited about opening up the German market for mobile transaction services with arvato as our partner,” said Margento CEO Gregor Breznik. arvato services’ managing director Mario Schwegler added: “The JV’s balanced mix of expertise in services and technology forms an outstanding basis for a nationwide implementation of mobile loyalty and payment services in Germany.”

Margento’s innovative technology turns mobile phones into a convenient, secure tool for payments and other transactions. Customers can use their mobiles to collect and redeem bonus points, pay for products and services, top up the balance on pre-paid phone accounts, redeem coupons, use mobile tickets, and buy and send electronic gift vouchers – all via a single terminal at POS.

In addition to this rich functionality, Margento’s technology boasts other key benefits: it guarantees the highest security standards, it is mature and has already been proven in actual use, and unlike the much-hyped NFC technology, it works with all mobiles, by all manufacturers, without the need for additional hard- or software. Besides, as Breznik points out, it is incredibly easy to use: “With our DOV technology, any mobile phone is immediately ready to go, without the need for further modification. Customers don’t have to write a text, access a browser or open complicated applications. They just make a phone-call.”

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Compared to the expense required to attract new customers with advertisements or sales, loyalty programs like these are an inexpensive way to keep existing customers coming back and the money flowing in.

Although the average household has a dozen loyalty memberships, almost half of all consumers carry just one or two store membership cards with them, according to Consumer Reports. Knowing how hard it is to become the one card that shoppers carry religiously, retailers are offering bigger and bigger incentives – sometimes too big for a loyalty program to remain profitable.

Margento answers the above and many other challenges with fundamentally simple approach: forget cards – use mobile phones.

Innovative and flexible real-time mobile Margento Loyalty gives businesses of any size the ability to instantly recognize and reward customers at the point-of-sale without any costs associated with production, issuing and managing plastic loyalty cards or paper stamp coupons. Customers no longer need additional cards to carry and coupons or sticker points to collect and show. Their points, rewards and bonuses are safely stored in database and can be redeemed simply by using their mobile phone.

Margento Loyalty enables customers purchasing habits analysis, a foundation for comprehensive and relevant customer segmentation. Margento Loyalty is using the same channel for collecting/redeeming loyalty and for promoting targeted marketing directly to customer. By removing the gap between BLP transaction and information channel Margento Loyalty builds strong fundamentals for effective CRM.

By switching to mobile phones and implementing the below secret ingredients your loyalty program will be a huge sucess:

Secret #1: Be unique within your segment. It may bee too late to be the first, but you can always be unique. And with using mobile phones as loyalty and communication vehicle you will be.

Secret #2: Make participation easy. Remove every barrier between your program and your customers.

Secret #3: Understand and customize. Emphasize the relationship. Research and undesrtand your customers, build a dialogue and emphasize the relationship. Customize your benefits and rewards accordingly. Make all your communication personal and meaningful.

Secret #4: Target your customers with the most potential. Think hard – these are not neccesserialy your current best customers

Secret #5. Focus on your brand. Your brand is the main differentiator in the eyes of your customers – it is the reasonf for them bringing business to you.

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Mobile coupons are coupons in a digital format, not paper, and created, distributed, redeemed and tracked via Margento System and people using their mobile phones.

Because of mobile phones ubiquity and the fact that they are almost always by a person’s side, by default, mobile coupons are available at pretty much anyplace and anytime.

Margento is well aligned with short- and long-term trends in the coupons industry:

1. Couponing is on the rise – whenever there is economic hardships, coupons usage increase.
2. While retailers are continuing and even accelerating their discounts offering, they make coupons restrictive by imposing shorter redemption duration periods and more purchase requirements to use the coupon.
3. From paper to digital coupons – Over 90% of coupons used today are offline coupons: newspaper coupons and those mailed directly to you. However, with growing online commerce, more and more people are using online coupons. With Margento, you can send coupons directly to your customers cell phones, freeng them the above mentioned hassle.
4. Connecting online coupons with existing store-loyalty programs – Most shoppers already participate in retailers’ loyalty programs. Margento enables retailers to easily integrate loyalta, coupons and even mobile gifts programs.
5. Mobile commerce innovations – Next to loyalty programs Margento offers complete software and hardware solutions to facilitate mobile payments. Thus, Margento is creating next generation of mobile payments and mobile coupons redemption solutions, that are available now.

Mobile couponing is gaining ground. With Margento, it is already here. It brings relevant information to shoppers who can make informed buying decisions resulting in cost savings and shorter buying process. It allows retailers to reach their customers easily and cost-efficiently, driving their sales and building their brand.

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