Contrary to the popular notion that coupons are mere discounts, coupons actually help you build potential customers, boost your sales volume, and promote customer repeat business. When provided with a coupon, it’s literally the offers or discounts that seize the customer’s attention. Coupons are a great way to draw customers who wouldn’t otherwise visit your online store to make a purchase.

Coupons when used constructively, can significantly add top-line revenue to your business.

Digital Coupons: What?

Digital coupons are just like the conventional paper coupons that your fellow customers can utilize for redeeming discounts or offers. These are aimed at capturing the customer’s attention and persuading them into making the purchase by providing them with attractive offers and discounts.

It’s cost-effective when compared to the conventional coupons which require printing and other costs. It can even be sent by text, email, or even any other communication methods.

Digital Coupons: Why?

Coupons have increasingly become a necessity these days. Coupons play a crucial role in attracting potential customers into the online store. They help in boosting your brand image without any funding. This, in turn, makes your brand name popular among the end-users.

Convincing new customers into purchasing your products is indeed a difficult task. Once the purchase is made, you can look for more ways to build their trust and making them come back for more. Coupon marketing is one such tactic to get customers on the hook.

Here are some of the reasons why digital coupons must be added to your marketing strategy:

• Entice customers and generate more traffic

> Many studies show that there has been a significant increase in foot traffic when discounts are offered to customers.

• Reduce the advertising costs for businesses

> Make sure that your discount coupons contain your company name, address, and other information so that potential customers may recognize your brand as one that offers exciting discounts and hence draw in more customers which otherwise would’ve cost you a considerable amount for the advertising purpose.

• Acquire customer database

> Coupons can be used as a method to collect customer information like phone number, email address, or even location. This can be used to build a database of potential customers who would be interested in coupons and discounts.

• Move older products

> At times, some of the products won’t be a hit. This could be because of many reasons. In such a case, these products can be reintroduced to the customers by incorporating appropriate offers and discounts into it.

• New customers for the business

> Providing offers and discounts is a great way to attract customers into your online store. You can even turn those ordinary customers into potential customers. 

Digital Coupons: Different Types

The online store owners are always looking out for newfangled ways to increase customer engagement on their website. This may include a bonus that may be in the form of digital coupons that can be used for redeeming discounts and other benefits for the next purchase.

Let’s have a look at some of the different types of digital coupons.

• Downloadable coupons

These are the coupons that are accessible to users all around the globe. The customers can have these coupons from either the company’s website or directly from an email or even from social media. Downloadable coupons can also be accessed from mobile devices as well.

• Mobile coupons

Mobile coupons are sent to the customer’s cell phone as a text message or can be downloaded using smartphone applications.

The coupon barcodes are scanned directly from the user’s mobile phone and the benefits are applied to it.

• Promo codes

Promo codes are being increasingly used these days. They are faster than the typical discount coupons and are easy for the customers to use.

They consist of strings of letters or numbers that the customers can make use to avail of the discount. These are often intended to encourage customers to make purchases.

• Automatic discounts

These are yet another major discount coupon that is gaining popularity these days. Here, the customer doesn’t have to do anything in particular in order to claim the discount. These are automatically applied on proceeding with the purchase. The cart abandonment rate is reduced while using these coupons. Hence, it’s a great option to have it in your online store.

Digital Coupons: Strategizing Coupons

Incorporating coupons to your marketing process can significantly boost sales, thereby add considerable revenue to your online store.

Here are some of the potential benefits of having coupons in your marketing process:

1. Rule out low-selling products

Some of the items in your online store won’t be a big hit! You can easily get rid of these items by offering exciting discounts. Couponing is a great way to increase your coupon amount over a long period of time.

2. Encourage your customers to buy more

Improve your sales by adding appropriate spending thresholds. Incorporate suitable discount messages too. This is a great way to ensure increased customer engagement on your website, thereby adding on to your sales conversions.

3. Form an email list

Do not underestimate the power of data! Especially the data that is from your potential customers is very much valuable. There are many brands out there that offer a considerable amount of discount for every signup for their email. Even by offering a mere discount of 10% can help you build an email list of 1000+ persons. 

4. Measure the effectiveness of channels

Coupons can be used to measure the effectiveness of channels. Try to put a different 10% code each on different social channels like Facebook, Instagram and you can see which of these channels works the best for you! You can make use of the results to have a fair idea on which channel your customers are likely to take up the offers.

5. Add a time limit

Adding a time limit for the offers can actually drive in more customers into making the purchase. Create a sense of urgency or Fear Of Missing Out(FOMO) for this.

6. Foster your referral marketing

It ain’t surprising that the majority of the referral programs increasingly make use of coupons and discounts. It’s for both new customers and existing customers as well. This is a sure-shot way to improve and promote your brand image. Here, the existing customers are rewarded for spreading the brand image and thus bringing in more customers.

7. Acquire customer feedback

Sometimes, surveys are better than giving a 10% or 20% discount. Surveys are extremely useful in obtaining information like customer expectations, requirements, etc. It’s more like customer feedback.

Digital Coupons: Marketing Coupons

Now that you are acquainted with the digital coupons, let’s have a look at how to incorporate coupons into your marketing strategy.

1.  Social media

Firstly, put in 24-hour-only coupons as your story on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms. This will create a sense of urgency and the customer will be prompted to grab the offer before the time runs out!

Make sure that you make it as creative as possible. There are a myriad of other offers and discounts all over social media and if you really want to make your products stand out, then this is what you can do.

2. Email

Whenever you launch a new product, try to incorporate discount coupons into your emails, be it system-generated emails or transactional emails. Adding coupons is a good way to measure the results. Also, just sending coupons along with your email doesn’t make them appealing! Make sure that you use your creativity to make them enticing to the customers.

3. SMS

More and more stores these days prefer to send offers and discount coupons via text message. Offering discounts to allow SMS messaging is a great way to create a customer base.

4. Advertisements

Advertising on different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc can help you to identify which channel is the most sought-after and that which works the best for you.

5. Influencer coupon codes

Influencer marketing is what most of the business brands make use of these days. Connect with an appropriate influencer whom you think will work the best for you, provide them with a unique coupon code, and analyze the results.

6. Affiliate links

Offering affiliate links along with the coupons are the easiest way to prompt the customer into buying. Utilizing affiliate marketing can actually cut down advertising costs.

7. Social events

Attending a promotional event, festivals or any other local events is actually a brand-building tactic. Offering discount coupons along with this can actually boost your sales conversions and turn the prospects into your potential customers.

Coupons are an effective way to boost your sales and thereby add in more revenue to your business. Incorporating them into your marketing strategy can build your customer base and gradually increase your sales. Now, most of the business brands are employing coupons to bring in more revenue. 

If you’re still not using coupons, then it’s high time you use coupons for your business. However, you can use coupons the way you would like to more than just offering simple discounts.

In the end, everyone loves to bargain and coupons indeed foster a feeling of getting a bargain. This paves the way for the very existence and success of coupon marketing!

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