Last Updated on February 29, 2024
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We all know the couponing craze very well. We sure can remember cutting out and collecting promotional coupons from papers for both our parents and grandparents. Did you know that the whole couponing tradition (I think we really can call it a tradition!) is already over 100 years old?
Nowadays, next to the promotional paper clips, we can also collect online coupons and promotional codes (such as go buses coupons). They have become an integral part of both traditional forms of advertisement and online marketing strategies.
How can you develop a successful coupon marketing strategy? We’ve prepared the most important aspects to take into account while planning this particular promotional campaign.
Who Are Your Customers?
Take your time doing thorough research on who exactly your customers are. Google Analyst is a great help to get all the needed data. It’s especially useful if you’re a company that also has an online shop with a worldwide sale of merchandise.
This tool will help you specify, i.a., the age brackets, genders, and nationalities of your website viewers. On such information, you can base the details of your coupon marketing tactics.
What Effects Would You Like to Achieve?
Thanks to the data gathered by Google Analyst you can prepare an effective strategy for couponing!
Take a careful look at your current offer and your company’s general goals, and think about how you expect your audience to react to it.
Possible situations when you might want to consider including coupon marketing into your promotional campaigns:
- Reminding your old clients about your store
- Winning new clients
- Refreshing your company’s image
- Promoting your new brand
- Increasing your sales in a specific area or among a specific group of your customers
- Increasing sales of a specific product or service that you offer
- Increasing your store’s and website’s traffic
- You’re looking for a 100% measurable marketing method
It’s difficult and ineffective to create one universal coupon campaign for each above-mentioned case at once. However, you can combine 2-3 of those situations and create one promotional offer to achieve the chosen goals in one step!
Example Ideas for a Successful Coupon Advertising
If you feel that your business needs a kick in the form of more than just one coupon shared on the Groupon platform, consider creating, e.g., a 3-level promotional campaign — the higher the amount of spent money, the higher the bonus for the consumer.
Let’s analyze an example 3-level couponing plan to stimulate your creative thinking!
Level 1: Offer Something for Free
Giving something for free is a great part of the trust-building process between you and both your current and new potential clients. It shows them that you think about them — you spent your time creating a gift for them especially.
It can be a PDF on your company’s brand-related subjects, free good-quality graphics (e.g., iPhone wallpapers or posters to print out), a set of samples of your products, the possibility of a trial period of your services, free consultations online… As you can see, the possibilities are countless!
Level 2: Offer an Exchange
An exchange option also gives the customers an impression of getting something at such low cost that it feels like for free. Which actually isn’t far from the truth!
How would such an exchange work? And what possibly could you exchange with a client?
Let’s start with what conditions would your customers have to meet to take part in the exchange with you — the entrepreneur. Here are some examples of activities engaging the customers:
- Collecting all the needed stamps on their loyalty cards
- Answering a survey while shopping online
- Signing up to your newsletter
- Recommending your company to their friends
And what could you offer in exchange?
- A small discount of 10%
- A product or service for free (e.g., collect all the stamps and get the 10th coffee for free!)
- A longer trial period (e.g., fill out the form and listen to podcasts on our platform for free for 2 more weeks!)
Level 3: Offer a Bonus or a Discount
Discounts and special offers work miracles as well. People are hunters and getting more things for less money is a real consumer’s trophy. And if it’s their found coupon that gives them the bonus or discount possibility, the hunter’s glory is even bigger.
It can be a coupon itself or a coupon including a promotional code that your client is going to use on online shopping.
Preparing coupons with secret passwords your clients would need to say while buying something directly at your store or coming for a beauty treatment your offer is also a very creative and engaging idea!
In this case, you can offer bigger discounts (e.g., -60% if a client spends more than $200 on your products or services) or various, actually profitable bonuses (e.g., coming to your hairdressing studio with that coupon, you can get samples of professional hair products after getting your hair done! or buy two packages of our tea and get the 3rd one for free!).
Planning a successful couponing marketing strategy for your business is actually a lot of fun both for you and your clients. It creates a bond between you and your targeted audience, and you get to know your customers and their needs better. Don’t wait up and start making your first couponing campaign right now — your efforts will be appreciated almost straight away!
Posted by:Igor Ovsyannnykov
Igor is an SEO specialist, designer, photographer, writer and music producer. He believes that knowledge can change the world and be used to inspire and empower young people to build the life of their dreams. When he is not writing in his favorite coffee shop, Igor spends most of his time reading books, taking photos, producing house music, and learning about cinematography. He is a sucker for good coffee, Indian food, and video games.
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