Offering discounts and coupons to prospects and customers can help to boost your sales and get new customers for your business. Coupons entice prospects that were shopping with competitors, reactivate old customers, and win over new people.
However, it is unfortunate that many business owners shoot themselves in the leg by targeting the wrong audience or offering poorly conceived offers, or both. It's possible to grow your audience with discounts and coupons, but you must craft offers that are enticing to the customers and profitable to your small business in the end.
While devising coupons and discounts, the critical question is how the offer is profitable to your business. In many cases, business owners offering coupons may not know the outcome financially or lose money because they are not tracking data. This problem can be solved easily when they pay more attention to the coupons and promote them.
The goal is to win over new customers who will most likely come back and buy at the total price. If your discount offers only provide a means for existing customers to spend less on your products, you are losing profit. Most coupon offers are capable of doing both, though. So you must shape it so that it fully maximizes the long-term gains for your business.
Strategies to increase sales using coupons
When used correctly, coupons increase your revenues significantly while requiring a relatively little marketing allocation. Of course, it comes at a cost. However, it has substantial returns.
1. Increase your email subscribers
We are in a world where data has become extremely valuable, especially involving your potential buyers. As a result, some businesses offer discounts for subscribing to their emails. You can also adopt this strategy to increase your email subscribers to over 1000 people. A 10-15% discount will be enough incentive to convince people to sign up.
2. Sell stagnant or slow-moving products
Every eCommerce business has products that fail to attract many buyers compared to other available products. A perfect way to take these products off your hands is by using coupons and discounts. You may be able to break even if you offer steep discounts. However, it is also possible that a 10% discount is needed to move the market for these products.
However, it would help if you considered the gross profits. You're not only looking for a cash grab with coupons. It is an opportunity for you also to raise your number of coupons with time. So, cut down on the 25%, and you'll see how 15% helps achieve the same goals.
Read more: The Simplest Ways to Save Costs with Coupons
3. Add incentives for customers to spend more
You can boost your AOV (average order value) during promo periods by using automatic coupons to increase the spending threshold. For example, it's easy to add messages like, "you're $25 away from getting a new discount on your order." It gives the buyer another reason to buy more from you and spend more money to activate an automatic discount.
4. Measure the effectiveness of channels
It is possible to test different channels using coupons. For instance, adding multiple discount codes on email campaigns and other channels such as Facebook and Instagram will help you spot the best-performing channel. This test is not scientific, but it guides you with time, especially when there's enough volume to allow you to see the channel that your customers use the most. This will provide you with more insight into how you should spend the marketing budget.
5. Add some time restraints
FOMO is a very effective conversion driver in marketing. Adding time restraints makes the coupons you're using more effective. For instance, "get a 20% discount on all orders by noon on January 1!" This adds some urgency to your promotion and will increase the number of orders that you get. In addition, the restricted timeframe will push a lot of your customers to place their orders at that specific time. However, you must make sure that your window is realistic and don't make it too far ahead, so it doesn't lose its effectiveness.
6. Get feedback from customers
An effective way to get customer feedback is by using discounts and coupons. An example is this: "get 15% off your next order by taking this quick survey."
It will help you boost the number of participants on the survey and give you more feedback that you can use to serve your customers better in more ways than offering 15% discounts. You can use the information collected to enhance your customers' experiences and ensure you don't have to rely on discounts for future surveys.
7. Improve your referral programs
Several referral programs run mainly on discounts. Referrals are effective for both the current customers and the new ones. Each one gets a coupon after taking particular actions. For example, your existing customer may refer to a new prospect through a coupon. Then, after the prospect patronizes the business, the customer that referred them gets a reward.
8. Target holiday periods
Holidays are very effective for coupon use. During Christmas, for instance, you can make the coupon code "Santa Claus" or "Merry Christmas" to celebrate with customers. It is also easier to remember and is an effective marketing strategy. It becomes a recurring campaign that is easily adjustable for your business needs every year.
Conclusion
Using coupons in your marketing strategy is effective, but they work best when combined with other tactics. It would be best not to rely on discounts and coupons alone to grow your business; otherwise, your product will lose value in the customers' eyes, or they get too used to receiving discounts and become unwilling to pay total prices.
Author Bio
Jake S. Platt is 31. He has a master's degree in marketing and started as a content writer with assignment writing services. He wrote his first story at age 15, now he brings decades of experience to inspire people to explore the world.
