Life has never been harder for small businesses that it is now, with the combination of large chain store domination and the current economic downturn making it ever harder to reach your target audience and make ends meet. However, intelligent use of the internet, with its global scope, is providing a welcome marketing lifeline that’s revolutionizing the way small business owners can reach their customers.

Discount voucher websites, otherwise known as group-buying sites, such as Groupon, Living Social, Social Buy and more, offer a largely risk-free route to customers on a national and international scale that they couldn’t have otherwise dreamed of. These sites work by promoting and selling discount products or services on behalf of businesses, and taking a percentage of the fee. These are targeted both at each website’s significant subscriber base, but also at search engine users, for example a holiday-maker searching for deals in Belfast might be directed by Google to them. Discounts are set based on the number of vouchers you want to sell. This means the discount is maintained in proportion to the number of products sold, so you shouldn’t be left out of pocket.

How does this benefit you? Well it’s simple really. With sites like Groupon boasting more than 33 million global subscribers (5.5 million in the UK) they enable businesses to promote to vast potential customer bases – for example, recent Edinburgh deals included one for hairdressing that harvested 1428 customers, big numbers for what is an independent business.

The sites don’t simply increase profits and productivity through the direct sales themselves. With most businesses receiving around 25% of their normal profits on each sale after site fees and discounts, it’s through their marketing power that the sites really sell, boosting profits by increasing footfall, creating opportunities to convert one-off into regular customers and opening the floor for upselling once vouchers have got customers through the door (plus statistics show around 40-50% of vouchers are never redeemed, meaning a little extra profit their too).

Equally important is the fact that small businesses won’t likewise find themselves out of pocket, or overrun by excessive subscribers to a particular discount. Most sites offer the opportunity to not only limit the numbers of a particular voucher sold, but create a use-buy deadline, and restrictions on the number of vouchers used in a particular party for example. These caveats allow small businesses to manage and control the effect of the promotion, and prepare for peaks in business during the period discounts are in effect.

With 49,000 small businesses already subscribed to Groupon, and many others using equivalent sites, there’s a clear trend towards this free marketing opportunity that shouldn’t be ignored, with the site effective nationwide. A quick check for recent Groupon deals in Glasgow shows the site regularly harvesting over 2000 new customers for businesses. This is the sort of free promotion that could make the difference between your business staying afloat or sinking fast.