LocalElements.com: New Local/Coupon Player

LocalElements.com is a new player in the growing field of local/coupon search sites, an industry that many see as a great opportunity to get more small businesses involved in online marketing. Local Elements launched earlier this year, and its marketing efforts to date have focused on Chico, California. Here’s a coupon example from a professional photographer in Chico. Despite the narrow focus (which is common for local startups), Kara Tupy, Local Elements’ VP of Marketing, tells me that they’re able to accept coupons from businesses nationwide.

Greg Sterling just wrote more about the local/coupons vertical last week on Search Engine Land, pointing out several other players in this market: CouponLooker from Judy’s Book, Valpak.com, Coupons.com, and … of course … Google, which offers small businesses the opportunity to create coupons via the local business center. Zixxo is another player in this space.

Local Elements has a few extras in the works that it hopes will separate itself from the pack: business profile pages, discussion forums, local events calendars, and more — all detailed in the official release.

Earlier this year, the New York Times wrote about the slow growth of the online coupon industry, saying that only about 12% of Internet users are coupon shoppers. (Thx Greg.)

[tags]local search, coupons, shopping[/tags]