Facebook Coupons: Money in the Bank?

Marketing Situation: Could coupons shared via Facebook add a powerful dimension to your marketing programs? This intriguing case study from Social Media Jungle, which profiles an online loyalty program from the specialty ice cream producer and retailer Cold Stone Creamery, suggests that the answer could be "yes" -- if.

As In: If you listen to your customers, if you create engaging content that motivates people to opt in, and if you can identify a compelling program that will engage online fans. If you can do that, you may be able to pull off what Cold Stone Creamery did: dramatically higher redemption rates (14 percent vs. 0.2 percent) at dramatically lower costs per redemption ($0.39 vs. $3.60).

Questions to Consider: Do your best customers have the opportunity to "like" your company, product, service or brand via a Facebook page? Could you leverage that interest with a targeted eGift campaign, enabling a fan of your page to send a discounted present to someone in his or her network?

Four recommended actions:The four best practices Cold Stone Creamery followed appear below.

1. Create a strong reciprocal value exchange. By "liking" the company's Facebook page, customers and prospective customers receive a stream of engaging, regularly updated content. Over 1.6 million people now follow Cold Stone Creamery on Facebook.

The Takeaway for Marketers: Consider building a loyalty program on Facebook that is based on a strong reciprocal value exchange, that gives users the opportunity to send a memorable gift, and that makes the sender of that gift look good.