My syndicated Super-Couponing Tips column for the week is entitled “Data Mining and Shopping.”
Here’s an excerpt:
“If you shop online, use a store’s loyalty program, print a coupon or even pay with a credit card, your personal data is being mined. It’s not necessary to be alarmed, though – marketers use data mining to improve the kinds of offers that are given to shoppers.”
Read this entire column at NWItimes.com.
My Super-Couponing Tips column appears in newspapers around the country to a weekly readership of over 20 million people! Learn more about my column’s syndication at this link.
Miss a column? Here’s an archive of all of my past columns I’ve shared on the blog.
SSMark1 says
Nice article.
If data mining and/or marketing are of interest to any of your readers, it is a great career to get into.
Even during the recent economic downturn, companies still need to market to people.
And if you buy some of the suggested items, you will get even more marketing = more coupons, more rewards, & more deals!
You had referenced Catalina Marketing in your article.
They have a large office in Schaumburg,IL (as well as other locations) and usually have a few job postings.
Most large companies have marketing departments, and if you have a passion for couponing and deal hunting, you may want to consider a career in marketing.
Most pay VERY well.
And you may as well do something you enjoy for a living!
Even the best marketing plans can go sideways such as marketing on too many avenues at once.
Some companies with green marketing departments learn the hard way.
Many blame bloggers & social media for exposing marketing errors (“glitches”) vs. looking in the mirror.
The real blame is their own marketing departments and not having savvy employees who know what glitches are and how to prevent them by doing a thorough marketing check before each campaign launch.
Improper coupon barcoding, a wrong picture of items on a coupon, confusing wording and terms on a coupon, coordination of the sales.
Some of the terms on these coupons are the ones that really get me.
The audience that the terms should be written for, should not be that of someone with a law degree.
People with law degrees do not run cash registers.
Or the other extreme, where the terms don’t make any sense.
How about the: one per purchase / one per transaction wording.
I think most couponers have gotten into that argument with a cashier.
There is a big difference between a store that follows their own coupon policy & follows the terms on coupons being redeemed, and those that are not in compliance by either not following their own stated policy or not training their own managers and cashiers. …leading to more bad customer experiences…
A BIG few “Glitches” within the past month that were costly:
-A coffee company recently had sales, coupons, and rebates at the same time on too many platforms, and could not believe customers would use all of them on a single purchase.
-A large grocer had a sale & a digital coupon, and they ended up giving way video games for free, sold out inventories, and then pulled the offer leading to a bad customer experience for many customers on top of losing money.
-A large craft retailer had “$15 off” instead of “15% off” on their app, and many customers were just buying $15 worth of merchandise, and repeating that offer over & over.
-A large big box store had a sale and a rebate offer and lost money on name brand phone cases.
And then on going things like:
-Stating you live in a certain zip code to be able to get a coupon not being marketed to your location.
-Large consumable goods companies not explicit enough on the terms of their coupons and the items they are valid on.
-And many others… the list goes on & on…
Glitches aren’t done intentional, but can have a devastating effect on a company or product.
So if you are thinking of a new career or a change in careers, working in retail marketing might be a good fit for you, especially if really like this stuff!
-Mark