 Click on the ad and you will be sent to a coupon site. These pages
carry the latest great money-saving offers from our "hometown proud"
grocery store, and can be printed out and used as you would any
coupon printed and distributed in other ways.The use of Internet
content sites to distribute special offers isn't brand-new, but it
is still in its early stages of growth. With sites such as LDN,
businesses can use ad dollars wisely to draw interest to their
business ad and then, with a simple click, redirect readers to a
company's own online site, where literally pages and pages of
information are available. It is this ability to spend smaller
amounts on advertising, all the while delivering more information,
that has caused Internet advertising to grow exponentially.
Charlie Lee, co-owner of the IGA along with Bill Campbell, isn't
what one would call an "Internet savvy" individual. In fact Lee
professes, "I'm still trying to catch up with the 1980s. But I look
at advertising as an investment, and advertising is how we tell
people what we have on sale, and that's what brings them into our
store."
Lee is being modest in his explanation. The store, since 1990
when Lee and Campbell purchased it, has been a friend to literally
hundreds of worthwhile civic and charitable causes in this
community, and residents shop at the store as a small way of saying
thank you for all the help this locally owned and operated grocer
does for the community.
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In many ways the Lincoln IGA is still an old-fashioned grocery
store. There are no self-checkout lanes, and groceries are still
carried out to your vehicle for you. But Lee understands that many
of his customers who enjoy these amenities are also members of the
cyber world and is reaching out to them.
"The coupons we have on the Lincoln Daily News page have some
exceptional savings. They are prices that we can only offer so many
times in a year," Lee explained.
"Unlike many businesses, the IGA can tell when an ad works," he
continued. "The coupons in the register tell us if people are
responding to the ad. It tells us if the ad worked."
There are a great many benefits to having the coupons available
online. First is their availability to anyone without needing to
purchase any publication to get them. Secondly, they are always
there. A person rummaging through the house looking for the coupons
they misplaced is now a thing of the past. At any time, you can
always go online and print them again. You can also print multiple
copies to distribute to family and friends who still haven't joined
the Internet world.
In order to help readers save more money, the coupons are
available to be printed in black-and-white to save color ink in the
printer for important things like pictures of family members,
friends or that exceptionally handsome rib roast you recently
purchased at IGA.
[By MIKE FAK] Readers can find more of Mike Fak's writing at
www.searchwarp.com
and www.problogs.com.
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