Today people shop both in-store and online, often mixing the two experiences. However, online shopping has become even more popular and when customers buy online they expect to save more money than they would do purchasing in physical stores. Actually, they are constantly looking for opportunities to do so! Businesses try to adapt their marketing strategy accordingly, especially to increase sales. In these occasions discounts are certainly attractive to customers, but digital coupons help brands to achieve other important goals too. They can increase social media fanbase, website traffic and loyalty. This is why the experts valued the digital coupon market over 4.67 Mn dollars in 2020 and they expect it to cross the value of 29.7 Bn dollars by the end of 2031. Not convinced yet?
Take a look at some interesting digital coupon statistics:
Online coupon users spend 24% more than regular customers
WHAT IS COUPON MARKETING?
After realizing how saving money is important to customers, let’s see what companies can do to meet their needs while achieving some crucial goals for themselves. The answer is Coupon Marketing. What is its definition? Coupon Marketing is a marketing strategy that takes advantage of customers’ interest in saving money. According to it, companies often decide to implement a coupon database or software to efficiently manage different types of clients and coupons. What do they offer? Codes, vouchers and discounts that attract new clients and retain the existing ones. Besides, coupon marketing lays its foundations on FOMO. Have you ever heard about that before? FOMO is literally the Fear Of Missing Out. Customers have often fear of missing some specific experiences or products and being socially excluded for that. Coupon marketing can easily take advantage of FOMO to offer special and temporary discounts or vouchers to customers. But let’s go deeper and discover what types of coupons are available today on the market.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF COUPONS
If you are wondering how many types of coupons exist out there, the answer is a lot and, probably, more than you would actually think! However, for our purpose it’s enough to make a basic distinction between Paper Coupons and Digital ones.
A Paper Coupon, as its name suggests, is the one you can find on newspapers, magazines, food packaging or flyers and sure it was the most common one until some years ago.
On the other hand, we have Digital Coupons. They are definitely more widespread today, especially in the last two years, as the pandemic forced lots of companies to implement digital strategies to reach new and retain actual customers. Where can you find them? Digital coupons are usually available on companies’ websites, they cannot be printed out and they can be used through a store’s app or a loyalty card.
WHAT CAN YOU ACHIEVE? HERE SOME KEY ADVANTAGES OF COUPON MARKETING
We have reached the most interesting and concrete part of this article: why should you give coupon marketing a chance? Here we will talk about some key advantages of this marketing strategy, with it you will be able to:
People seem to positively respond to brands that reward their customers and thank them for their support with discounts and promotions. They feel as if they are truly important for the brand and are more willing to repeat their purchases.
Often, especially in the retail industry, companies offer products that are similar to those offered by their competitors. So how can they stand out in the market? Offering customers the chance to buy a product with a discount or other benefits a coupon could give them, making them choose you over the competition.
We always say that it’s cheaper to retain an existing customer than to get a new one and it’s true. But coupons are a valid tool to make new people try your products, increasing the brand awareness even if those customers would never choose to buy from you again.
By using coupons, companies can easily target the specific customers they want to reach, especially if they decide to use a coupon management database or software. Also, with coupons companies can reach different types of customers that have different types of tastes and needs.
Customers love to share their shopping experiences with peers, and when it comes to a discount, people can’t help talking about the deal they made. Using coupons means letting people talk about your brand and the promotions it offers, increasing the possibility of new people wanting to try it.
HOW TO DEVELOP A COUPON MARKETING STRATEGY
Like any marketing strategy, the coupon one also involves the need to set goals and choose the best tools to achieve them. But let’s go step by step and see together which path a company should follow to develop a coupon marketing strategy.
Step 1
The first step should be an analysis of the target market and the activities carried out by its competitors. Then look for the tools and means on which other companies focus their coupon marketing strategy and individual the elements with which to differentiate their business. At the end of this analysis, some details such as deadlines and the value to be assigned to the coupons must be clear.
Step 2
The next step is to identify and segment the target audience. What does it mean? Mainly to collect data (behavioral and demographic) on its customers through, for example, post-purchase surveys. This activity is very important to avoid sending coupons to uninterested consumers. It could be very useful to create different mailing lists in which customers are grouped based on the information obtained.
Step 3
Step number three is based on choosing the best opportunities for sending coupons. People want to be pampered at special times and specific periods such as birthdays or during the holiday season. However, remember that every strategy must be unique. Why not create ad hoc opportunities to strengthen the relationship with the customer? For example, we are talking about important events in the history of the company or sector events.
Step 4
The last step of the coupon marketing strategy should be focused on measuring the results obtained. The monitoring of coupons is an activity that has been simplified thanks to the use of promotional codes that allow companies to monitor the progress of the campaign implemented.
What could be the activities that allow you to increase sales?
They work especially well if one of the goals is to grow the mailing list. 76% of consumers are willing to share their email if this allows them to obtain a special offer. This way, once you get new email addresses, you can share exclusive and relevant offers with them.
That is a promotion that users have access to for a limited period of time. The goal is to convince customers to act immediately, especially the most skeptical and those who are in the offer consideration phase. This activity must also take into consideration the strategy of the competitors and, in order to work, it is necessary to find the differentiating element. For example, if other retailers offer a 10% discount it might be strategic to do the same and add free shipping.
A great way to encourage customer loyalty. All those who choose to make constant purchases from a company are rewarded with exclusive offers. To create a rewards program, you need to know your customers and understand what they want. Identify their buying habits, the products / services that are more in line with their needs and the most used rewards.
Emails and flyers aren’t the only tools for offering coupons to your customers. We think of all the messaging apps and the daily use made of them by users. Aren’t they a strategic tool for sending coupons? We also consider that most of the purchases by users are made through e-commerce. It is therefore essential to include digital coupons in your strategy.
GIVE VALUE TO YOUR STRATEGY WITH THE BIT2WIN COUPON SOLUTION
Coupons represent one of the Bit2win solutions designed specifically to increase customer engagement and loyalty. Every promotion is possible and the added value is given by the focus on the customer, but let’s see together the main capabilities of our solution:
Advanced Coupon Marketing Software
You can easily create millions of randomly generated coupons and set individual expiration dates. Furthermore, customer IDs can be linked to individual coupons.
Personalized Coupons
Reaching specific market segments has never been easier. Personalization features allow you to use specific data (unique prefixes and suffixes) rather than letters or numbers.
Find and track coupons
Monitoring coupon marketing activity is a fundamental phase of the strategy. For this reason, we offer you the possibility to quickly make changes to your promotions.
Automated budgets and limits
We offer you the ability to optimize your coupon marketing campaign with redemption limits that end automatically when the set goal is reached.
