Sunday newspaper coupons are an endangered species. Here’s why, and here’s what you can do to help save them.

First, if you haven’t clicked over to my “about” page to learn more about your blogger, you need to be aware that I work as a newspaper reporter for The Monroe Evening News in Monroe, Mich.

For about a year and a half, as part of the Monroe on a Budget blog reports, I’ve been telling my local readers about the grocery, discount and drugstore sales and coupon packets they’ll find in the Monroe newspaper. For example, this picture features the five coupon packets that were in the April 5 Sunday newspaper.

Sales and coupon reports were not part of the original budget blog concept, but I decided to incorporate the idea as best I could for my local market after I saw how popular those features were on other blogs.

Now for some background: in recent months, both traditional media and social media have been reporting on this or that newspaper shutting down, going on-line only, outsourcing their print production to other cities, or reducing publication dates. Some of the affected newspapers are in Michigan.

The Monroe Evening News is an employee-owned, independent, local newspaper in Monroe, Mich., and we are committed to keeping 7 days of publication and delivery. (March 28 column by editor Deborah Saul) There have been changes that local readers have noticed or will see soon: such as what weekly features are running where. (April 4 column by Deborah Saul.) And my newspaper is operating with fewer employees than we did a year or so ago.

But the employee ownership business model, plus the fact we are in a smaller metro market, is helping my newspaper navigate through these tough times.

Now, how does the turmoil in the newspaper industry affect the Sunday coupons?

Those Sunday grocery coupons are provided by advertisers. If there are no coupons in the Sunday newspaper any given week, that was a decision by the coupon companies to not schedule coupon books on that day. There are Internet sites that post the coupon schedules, although I’ve found them to be wrong on occasion and therefore have a critical view of any such announcements unless they come directly from the coupon company or the newspaper itself. (Detroit Free Press has been known to e-mail its customers with a heads up.)

There are usually no coupon inserts on holiday weekends, for example. President’s Day weekend, Sunday Feb. 15, was the most recent example in my local market. I also do not expect coupon packets on Easter Sunday. Advertisers know that too many readers are traveling or busy with family events on holiday weekends to pay attention to coupon packets.

The new angle is this: A major Sunday newspaper coupon provider is starting to pull out  its product out of some newspapers. It’s RedPlum, published by Valassis.

So far, RedPlum coupons are still showing up in southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio newspapers. I found them Sunday April 5 in The Monroe Evening News, the Detroit Free Press and The Toledo Blade. (I get the Evening News and Free Press on home delivery, the Blade I picked up at a convenience store in part because I was researching for this article.)

RedPlum’s coupons that day included products such as Dunkin Donuts coffee, Advil Cold and Sinus, Lawry’s Seasoning Blend and Pine Sol.

But according to several news and blog sources, the RedPlum coupons are no longer in the newspapers in some major cities such as Cleveland, Ohio. Coupon-users in northeast Ohio now get their coupons via direct mail campaign.

I didn’t know about the coupon controversy until a few days ago, but it erupted in February.

Bargain Briana is the blog where I first saw that report. And I’ve been chasing down headlines ever since.

She linked to the BNET Advertising Insights article Valassis Angers Blogger Moms.

BNET notes that WKYC TV 3 in Cleveland has reported on the situation – explaining to its viewers why the RedPlum coupons were no longer in The Cleveland Plain Dealer:

It turns out that the Valassis Company, owner of RedPlum, has decided to stop inserting those coupons in the Cleveland area.

In a statement released to Channel 3 News, Valassis stated:

“Starting in February, the RedPlum coupon booklet will now be delivered in Cleveland through consumers’ mailboxes along with their weekly grocery circulars and other savings and deals. By using direct mail, the RedPlum insert will now be able to reach almost twice as many Cleveland households as in the past. In these challenging economic times, it has never been more important to make these essential savings available to as many Clevelanders as possible so they can stretch the dollars in their wallets.”

– Thomas Murray, Valassis Vice President and General Manager of the FSI

There is now a campaign site called Bring Back the Coupons that invites people to write the advertisers and ask them to go back into the newspaper markets.

As I’ve been tracking the story around the Internet, it is obvious that the bottom line is that this is a business decision.

Here is a snippet from BNET’s report: Valassis – Layoffs will continue as it reduces newspaper coupon business.

The company said that where newspaper circulation falls below 60 percent penetration they are going to start switching to direct mail coupons (“shared mail.”) Because shared mail is cheaper, they’re also pushing newspapers to lower the cost of taking the coupons they still handle. Newspaper subscribers who still want the coupons they used to get can go online to RedPlum.com and get them there.

Basically, it’s a double whammy for newspapers from which they will never recover. The only winner here will be the U.S. Postal Service.

Will this situation start migrating to other areas? I don’t know.

Here’s what Valassis has posted on its web site in regards to this topic:

Recently in certain markets, the RedPlum coupon booklet shifted delivery from newspaper to the mail, allowing even more consumers in those areas to receive these savings and deals. Overall, however, a majority of the free-standing insert coupons continue to be distributed in newspapers across the country.

And Valassis is following up on the next page with this:

Valassis reaches over 100 million households across our RedPlum portfolio and is always looking for ways to increase the value we deliver to consumers. The familiar full-color RedPlum free-standing insert coupon booklet is delivered both in the newspaper and in the mail in select markets. This shift toward distribution in select areas began over a year ago and has allowed us to reach significantly more households in each of the eight markets where this shift has occurred. As the only company that can blend newspaper and mail distribution, this additional distribution method provides a viable alternative to declining newspaper circulation and it is delivered for free in the mail right along side grocery circulars and other valuable promotions consumers use to seek out deals and savings.

Misleading headlines and blog entries have erroneously reported that Valassis will not deliver its RedPlum coupons in the newspaper. In fact, 90% of the free-standing inserts are delivered in newspapers across the country. The determination of how and where to distribute promotional items such as coupons is made on a market-by-market basis, based largely on the objectives of our clients. They desire the ability to reach as many consumers as possible with their offers, and want to avoid duplication.

I’ve told you about other ways to get coupons: women’s magazines, health magazines, writing to the companies, customer loyalty cards, Internet printables, and e-coupons on your shopper card. I’ve reported on other tricks to keep grocery bills down such as the groceries-by-the-box programs and frugal recipe sites. You’ll find a huge list of budget-friendly links, tips and sites at my “Grocery shopping on a budget” sidebar.

But I haven’t found a satisfactory substitute for the variety and amount of coupons one can find in the Sunday papers.

My local readers in Monroe, Mich., in particular have a big advantage with coupons because it’s quite easy to get two, if not three, different Sunday newspapers on home delivery and at the convenience stores. I really did find five coupon packets each in the April 5 Monroe, Toledo and Detroit Sunday papers that were available in Monroe, Mich., The usual coupon ratio in this area is two or three books, per newspaper, per week.

But think like an advertising company for a minute. There’s a recession going on. People are less likely to buy products of any kind. You know advertising works – but you want the best rate of return that you can get.

Where are you going to advertise?

Are the Sunday newspaper coupons still an effective technique?

Would direct mail provide better results?

Think like a consumer now. If you love coupons, that’s because you know how to use them to help stretch your budget.

But the reason more people don’t clip coupons is because they never learned the shopping habits that use coupons effectively. If you go to the market and save only $2 for clipping up that week’s stack of coupons, would you want to do it again?

So here’s what you can do to help keep the coupons coming in your newspapers:

You can help other shoppers learn how to use newspaper coupons to save money at the grocery and drug stores.

It doesn’t matter that some people have figured out how to do really, really well on coupon shopping. What the advertisers want to do is move a lot of product off the shelves and into a lot of shopping carts.

The more families who use newspaper coupons as part of their shopping routines, the more that newspaper coupons are seen as an effective marketing campaign.

I’m not an expert in national media advertising.  I took only two economics classes in college. This is just plain common sense.

I do hear from my newspaper co-workers about the decisions that their advertising clients make as to when, where and how to advertise during a tough economy. One of the success stories: we’ve noticed a big response from both readers and advertisers for our monthly Saving Sense coupon booklet that features local businesses.

The national advertisers need to know their newspaper coupon campaigns work too.

If newspaper coupons have proven to be an effective advertising technique for a particular city or region, why would RedPlum or any other coupon company pull out of that area’s newspaper?

So while I understand the frustrations expressed by the forum members at the Bring Back the Coupon Site, the point to remember is “It’s just business.”

And from a business perspective, here are some practical steps you can take to help save the endangered species known as Sunday newspaper coupons:

• Clip and use coupons. If you subscribe to a newspaper, no matter which one, thank you! Get hand-me-down coupons from another newspaper subscriber if you aren’t willing to buy your own newspaper. The goal here is return on investment for the advertiser – which isn’t necessarily based on actual newspaper circulation numbers. It’s based on results.
• Organize your coupons so you can find your deals when you are shopping. Here is my post on how to create and maintain a coupon box and a related post on how to match your coupons to the sales fliers.
• Some people find it helpful to subscribe to a coupon-matching service. That technique isn’t all that helpful for my local market, based on what I found when I looked up the details for one such service. But feel free to give those sites a try if you won’t take the time to read your grocery sales fliers.
• Hand down or donate coupons you don’t need to another family. There is certainly someone you know who is on a tight budget and can’t afford a newspaper, even if she will save money in the long run with that resource. Now, if you are really nice, you might give her a gift subscription to the newspaper. But that’s up to you.
• Set up or participate in a coupon swap box. For my local readers, there are such boxes at Dorsch Memorial Branch Library in Monroe, Mich., and Milan Public Library in Milan, Mich. This will help get more coupons in circulation, and will benefit families who could use two or three of the same coupon.
• Teach other people how to shop with coupons, especially in markets where coupons are in the newspapers. If you would like me to speak at your event or meeting in the Monroe, Mich., area, I have a presentation about “Grocery shopping on a budget,” and my techniques include – but aren’t limited to – grocery coupons. The class I am teaching May 13 for my local readers through Monroe Community Education will include my main presentation and then go into more details specifically on coupons.
• Go shopping with your non-couponing friends to show them how it’s done, and how much money they can save if they pay attention to the details. Be realistic with expectations: I’ve never picked up $100 worth of groceries for $2. We don’t have that good of a double coupon policy available in Monroe, Mich. The stores that double coupons in my market will double up to 50 cents. But local shoppers can take a sizeable amount of money off their grocery bills on a consistent basis with coupons. About two or three times a month, I’ve shown you on this blog what I can do in Monroe, Mich. If couponing didn’t work, I wouldn’t do it.

This is the longest stand-alone report I’ve made on Monroe on a Budget. I apologize for those of you who think this article was too lengthy. But the topic didn’t really seem to lend itself to a “series”.