BusinessReport.com

Don’t let the pretty colors and pictures on a coupon fool you. This piece of paper has become an industry-specific, highly strategic marketing tool aimed at driving business.

“When you talk with a dry cleaner, you have to understand what drives sales in that business and what incentives to give people to get them to do business there,” says Gary Sledge, who with his wife, Denise, recently bought Valpak of Baton Rouge, a direct mailing franchise.

“Valpak made a science of it, tracking how often certain categories need to mail and the average circulation they need to purchase to get the desired attention and the type offers that need to run.”

Armed with high-powered marketing and a new high-tech plant, Sledge gratefully applies his “bachelor’s of couponing” training from Valpak’s Coupon University to growing their new franchise.

Valpak’s recent startup of its new $200 million, highly automated production plant in St. Petersburg, Fla., will allow franchisees to offer high-volume pricing and possibly more products and services. Sledge says their coupons were the first printed at the plant when it started operation in January. The facility will produce a projected 54 billion coupons a year, doubling current capacity.

This is welcome news for Sledge, who hopes to grow his monthly coupons from 18 to 30. Every month, the franchisee’s coupons are combined with Valpak’s national advertiser coupons and mailed in the company’s longstanding light blue envelope to 120,000 households in the Baton Rouge area.

If they succeed in getting more advertisers, he hopes to also grow his office staff from three people (including the Sledges) to four or five next year.

Eric Turk, owner of Purity Super Steamers in Baton Rouge and a Valpak customer for nearly 14 years, says the service works for his business.

“Mr. Sledge brings a lot of integrity to it,” he says. “Ninety-five percent of all our business comes from our Valpak coupon. Every time we walk in a house, they have their coupon. We now clean an average of 20 hours a day six days a week. Some people call us and tell us they won’t use us until they get their Valpak coupon.”

This is also true for Tricia Drago, a Denham Springs resident who represents one of the thousands of households that receive a Valpak envelope every month.

“I do wait for it to come in the mail,” she says. “I do use them, especially the food coupons. I’ve used the haircut coupons, save all the automotive coupons and used a carpet cleaning coupon.”

Sledge first joined Valpak in 1991 as a salesman for the same franchise he now owns today. At that time, it was called American Town Marketing, and his uncle was the owner.

That’s also when Sledge discovered benefits of the Valpak network such as Coupon University, which includes training and a forum for franchisees to share marketing successes to help each other grow. In 1999, Sledge became sales manager and his wife also joined the franchise as a sales person.

“I enjoyed the relationships I built with business owners,” Sledge says. “It was good to be working with family, and at the same time the product made sense to business owners so it was rewarding to build relationships that have lasted all these years. We still have clients we sold to in the 1990s.”

Four years later, the couple bought the Valpak of Lafayette franchise, which Gary manned until Denise joined him in March 2004. This year, they bought the Baton Rouge franchise and sold the Lafayette office.

Managing a Valpak franchise means wearing different hats and working with a lot of different business owners, he says. A franchisee is really a marketing arm of Valpak. Its corporate office handles all coupon design, printing and distribution.

“Everyone is really open and easy to see, and open to new ideas,” Sledge says. “We’re very fortunate that here, in these markets, most of the owners will let you in and hear ideas about how to grow their company.”

Turk gratefully says he was one of the people open to Sledge redesigning his coupon, and he’s already noticed more sales with this 23-year business. He also appreciates Sledge’s integrity in that he seeks advertisers who also guarantee satisfaction for their own customers.

Sledge says their average day begins with contacting businesses that fit in Valpak’s 100 categories of businesses. Together, the sales person and client consult to individualize advertising based on business goals and recommended offers that were effective for other similar businesses. The goal, Sledge says, is to provide an “industry-specific coupon” that lessens an advertiser’s risk.

“There’s a reward in helping business owners grow and succeed,” Sledge says. “I like finding ways to help market their business and grow it. I succeed when they succeed. That’s the reward for me.”