The coupon is 130 years old. Why are we still doing this?
THE THING
In 1887, a man named Asa Candler mailed handwritten tickets to strangers offering them a free glass of Coca-Cola.
He wanted people to try his product.
He had no other way to reach them.
It worked.
That man invented the coupon.
It is now 2026.
We have:
Satellite internet
Artificial intelligence
Behavioral targeting that predicts what you’ll want before you do
…and the dominant strategy for getting a customer through the door of a small business is still…
a variation of Asa Candler’s handwritten ticket.
We just put it on Groupon now.
WHY WE ACCEPT IT
The coupon survives because it appears to work.
Someone clips it.
Someone shows up.
Someone buys something.
There’s a transaction.
The business owner sees a body in the store…
and calls it a win.
What they don’t see:
Who that person is
Whether they’ll come back
Whether they told anyone
Whether they liked the place—or just liked 50% off
Whether the discount erased the margin entirely
The coupon is the business equivalent of:
paying someone to stand in your store for an afternoon.
They’re there.
They might buy something.
But they don’t belong there.
And you both know it.
We accept this because most marketing has always been a leap of faith.
And the coupon gives you something to count.
A measurable bet in an unmeasurable world.
It’s not good.
It’s just better than nothing.
So it stayed.
WHY IT’S ACTUALLY INSANE
The coupon’s dirty secret is what it selects for.
The customer who responds to a coupon is motivated by one thing:
The discount.
Not:
Your product
Your service
Your story
Your community
Just…
the number after the percent sign.
Which means:
The moment you stop offering the discount—
they stop coming.
You didn’t build loyalty.
You built dependency.
On your own margin.
The coupon doesn’t get you customers.
It rents you strangers.
Meanwhile:
The average small business spends 7–10% of revenue on marketing.
A restaurant doing $800K?
That’s up to $80,000 a year.
On what?
Facebook ads with a 0.9% click-through rate
Groupon deals that never convert
Flyers that get thrown away in the parking lot
And the metric they track?
Foot traffic.
Bodies through the door.
Not:
Loyalty
Lifetime value
Community
Just:
“Did someone come in today?”
We built an entire industry around measuring the wrong thing—
Using a tool invented before the automobile—
And we call it…
marketing.
WHAT WOULD HAVE TO BE TRUE FOR IT TO CHANGE
A business owner would need to know something simple:
Before a customer walks in—
this person chose them.
Not because of a discount.
Because of:
Who they are
What they care about
What they’re looking for
And every dollar spent to reach that person?
Actually reached that person.
That’s not a fantasy.
That’s just different infrastructure.
Instead of broadcasting discounts and hoping someone bites—
You make your offer available to people already looking for what you have.
And you only pay…
when they show up.
Pre-sold foot traffic.
Not rented strangers.
Chosen customers.
Asa Candler mailed handwritten tickets because that was the only way to reach people in 1887.
What’s our excuse?
THE NUDGE
If you own or run a business:
What percentage of your marketing spend can you directly tie to a loyal, returning customer?
If you can’t answer that—
you already know the problem.
Turn Around. Look Up.
Connection is Currency.
→ Forward this to someone still discounting their way to growth. Or to someone that is interested in reinventing things so they work better.