Back in July, I looked at a patent from Google that described issuing coupons from stores in Google’s Holy Grail of Shopping? It appears that Google has taken the first of what could be a number of steps towards making the processes described in that patent come true, with news that they are enabling advertisers to add coupons to their listings in Google Maps.
Danny Sullivan captures a lot of the details about this new service in Google Maps Gets Coupons
The patent, Generating and/or serving dynamic promotional offers such as coupons and advertisements, does a great job of laying out some possible next steps and detailing how these types of discount offerings could be expanded to make Google Local a great avenue for small businesses to attract customers. Check out my previous post on the patent for some of those possibilities.
Google Maps probably needed a boost of some type to make it more attractive to business owners. Seeding the coupon offerings with coupons from Valpak was a good way to begin.
I’d encourage business owners even somewhat interested in offering coupons to visit the Google Local Business Center and make sure that they have greater visibility in Google Maps.