Coupons to drive traffic here from Yahoo group

[MediaOne]

Sorry if this has been addressed, tried searching and had no luck.

From what I have seen online, the best thing to do is to produce a coupon with a tracking code on it. I am thinking the codes should be different (00001, 00002, 00003) so I can make sure people aren't redeeming them more than once.

Is this the right way to go about it? Thanks all!

[astral276]

Not sure exactly what you are trying to do here. Are you giving discount coupons to Yahoo users?

I looked at a similar thing once of giving discount coupons to buyers to redeem against future purchases. I used a unique sequence of 13 alphanumeric characters rather than a simple incrementing number. This number I then would record as issued to a certain person. That way I could be sure that the coupon was valid and being used by the person it was issued to.

I never ran with the scheme so I don't know if it would have worked or not.

[Maxx]

Hi Guys, I'm going to give out coupons also. I like Mel's idea of how to number the coupons. But they will be given out to customers who have bought before.

The coupons will be good for a set amount of time (3 months).
Then I will use a spread sheet to put the buyer info, the coupon number, and expiration date.

That's my plan anyway.

I like the idea of giving out coupons on other community sites to get new customers. I haven't thought about that. Good idea, MediaOne. :-)

[OldPostcards]

I tried the coupon scheme with buyers who bought from me on Feebay - but not one of the coupons was ever presented.

[MediaOne]

Well, the coupons would be given out via the yahoo group that is a newsletter, q&a type board. It will allow people to opt-in to merch updates/special sent to their email accounts, bothy Yahoo and non-Yahoo. After registering, the welcome email would include the code. Yahoo membership isn't a requirement to sign up however.

I too like the alpha-numeric system that was mentioned. I guess the only issue would be if someone had 2 accts. John1@yahoo and John2@yahoo. There would be no way to check that. Still would make two sales in that case.

[astral276]

An Excel macro (GetPerms) I wrote to generate a series of unique 13 character alphanumeric codes follows if it is of any use.

 
Dim seq As String * 36
 
Sub GetPerms()
    Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
    Dim code As String, num() As String
    Dim count As Integer, CurrentRow As Integer
    Dim unique As Boolean
 
    Randomize
    seq = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    ActiveSheet.Columns(1).Clear
    CurrentRow = 1
 
    Do Until count > 0 And count <= 1000
        count = Val(InputBox("How many results do you want? (1 - 1000):", "Astral", 1000))
        If count = 0 Then Exit Sub
    Loop
    ReDim num(count)
 
    For i = 1 To count
        Do While unique = False
        unique = True
            code = getnum
            For k = 1 To count
                If num(k) = "" Then Exit For
                If num(k) = code Then
                    unique = False
                    Exit For
                End If
            Next k
        Loop
        num(i) = code
        unique = False
    Next i
 
    For j = 1 To count
        Cells(CurrentRow, 1) = num(j)
        CurrentRow = CurrentRow + 1
    Next j
End Sub
 
Function getnum() As String     ' build sequence of numbers
    Dim j As Integer
 
    For j = 1 To 13
        newnum = newnum + Mid(seq, (Int(Rnd * 36) + 1), 1)
    Next
 
    getnum = newnum
 
End Function

Also available as an Excel workbook at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/astral....temp/codes.xls

[Maxx]

Thanks Mel,
Right after replying to this thread I went to work to create a coupon tracking sheet. Thanks for your macro, it would have come in handy!
Maxx

[astral276]

Thanks Mel,
Right after replying to this thread I went to work to create a coupon tracking sheet. Thanks for your macro, it would have come in handy!
Maxx

After posting I spotted a logic error that would allow, albeit unlikely, a non unique code to be picked during a run.

OP containing code updated and the worksheet for download also updated.

Hopefully correct this time.

[MediaOne]

Sweeeeet!!! Thanks!