Online Coupon Marketing Strategy 101

You like discounts, right? You probably like coupons too. And guess what? If you’re an online small business owner, your customers probably like them too. In fact, over 28.6% of online shoppers say that they search for a coupon before buying something. In this article you’ll learn a bit about online coupon strategy that will help you drive in eager customers.

Coupon marketing is a way businesses can offer discounts or coupons to their customers. This kind of marketing is used not just to make money, but to attract attention to what the business has to offer, as well as track progress of your campaign. Coupons can be found either online, or offline.

For example, with online coupon places, you have places like Groupon that have many businesses that submit deals from anything to travel, to restaurants, and even buying music online, or various tangible products. With offline coupons, they can be found in newspapers, magazines, and even ads on television or the radio.

Even Verpex has their own coupon posted on the site where all web hosting packages are 90% off for the first month!

When it comes to coupon marketing for your company, you’ll find there are a few reasons why you should use it:

• You can grow your customer base quickly.
• You can easily track your coupon marketing campaigns.
• You can get attention to your business over others in your industry.
• You can clear out stock faster.

You can grow your customer base quickly.

Need to get customers fast? Well, coupons will definitely get people to buy. You can even go further by issuing coupons to current customers, in order to reward them for being loyal and to get them to return.

You can easily track your coupon marketing campaigns.

Most coupons usually have some type of code, which you can use to give discounts for specific products or services, but if you have a point of sale system that you can track your sales, you can see how successful your campaigns are. You can use past coupon campaigns to even plan for future discounts.

You can get attention to your business over others in your industry.

Over 68% of consumers say that companies benefit from brand awareness when using an online coupon marketing strategy.

You can clear out stock faster.

Got a product you only offer during a specific time, or have stock that you’re trying to clear out? Using an online coupon marketing strategy can help you attract attention to the product you want to sell out, so you can offer other products.

Now that you know about coupon marketing and why you should consider using it for your business, here are some tips to get you started toward creating your own campaigns.

1. Choose the right type of coupon campaign to run.
2. Make sure the coupon fits your business model.
3. Utilize audience segmentation.
4. Decide where to run your coupon campaign.
5. Set a goal for your campaign.
6. Plan the discount that works for you.
7. Monitor your coupon campaign
8. Make sure not to issue coupons too much, in order not to make your business look cheap.
9. Make sure to remember your loyal customers.

1. Choose the right type of coupon campaign to run.

While this article is about online coupon marketing strategy, sometimes you may want to run a coupon campaign offline, or both online and offline. That’s okay if you wish to do both. However, you should determine who your audience is and where they are, so you can actually reach them. You could literally miss your whole audience by not issuing your coupons through the right channels.

For example, if your audience is younger, they might not be reading many printed magazines or newspapers. They might not even be listening to the radio. They might be watching videos on Youtube, or be on some social network a lot. In fact, about 74% of online consumers follow brands on social networks, just to look for coupons!

2. Make sure the coupon fits your business model.

Surprisingly, not all businesses may find that offering coupons fits their business model. It is up to you to determine if it does. For example, luxury brands don’t often use an online coupon marketing strategy due to the fact that they can’t justify that a discount would be of benefit due to the quality of their product or service.

It’s important to determine what your least popular and most purchased products are, to determine where a coupon marketing strategy could fit.

3. Utilize audience segmentation.

Use audience segmentation to personalize a customer’s experience. You should be doing this for new customers, as well as your already established customer base. Each of your customers has specific interests. You can find this out not only their buying behavior but also through surveys and encouraging customers to subscribe to your email newsletter.

This will allow you to run focused campaigns based on areas like location, age, buying behavior, interests, gender, and even how much they earn.

4. Decide where to run your coupon campaign.

When you’re planning a coupon campaign, while you need to decide what type of campaign you want to run, you also need to determine what channels to distribute those coupons. Online, you can launch your coupon campaign on social networks, email newsletters, search engines, your website, ad networks, or other websites that may have their own in-house advertising.

5. Set a goal for your campaign.

You should always set a goal for any marketing campaign. Are you just trying to boost sales? Are you needing to get more attention to your brand? Are you needing to get some of your stock cleared out in order to bring in something new? These are just a few questions you should think about when setting a goal for your coupon campaign.

6. Plan the discount that works for you.

Did you know that in an online coupon marketing strategy, you don’t always have to discount the actual product or service? If you didn’t, now you do. You can offer free shipping, and even give a bonus gift. Additionally, you can even do giveaway contests or offer rewards for referrals.

7. Monitor your coupon campaign.

Once you’ve launched your coupon campaign, you should be monitoring your progress. Not only that, you should also monitor your costs if you’ve done any advertising for your coupon marketing campaign.

8. Make sure not to issue coupons too much, in order not to make your business look cheap.

It’s best not to issue too many coupons too often, as your customers could think that your products are cheap and low quality.

9. Make sure to remember your loyal customers.

While you want to attract new customers, make sure to remember your loyal existing ones. Running special campaigns for them will get them to return again and again.

Now that you know more about coupon marketing strategy and even have some tips, it’s time to look at what you have in stock and get your own coupon campaign going. Hopefully, this article has been of help so you can boost sales and gain a bigger customer base. Good luck!