This blog follows on from blog 3 which discussed the different digital coupons that are available and why businesses are choosing to use them. This blog will point out some useful tips for effective digital coupon marketing.
Choosing your digital coupon package.
Firstly you must select the product/service that you are willing to sell at a reduced rate then come up with percentage cut that you are happy with. Then you need to decide how long you want the promotion to run for. Often it is most appropriate to limit how often the deal is marketed, so that it doesn’t serve as an insult to current customers (Mashable, 2010).
When designing your coupon websites such as “Thecouponmaker.com” can help to enable your digital coupon to look professional and exciting. Make sure to include your logo and other elements that are important to your brand as coupons offer a great form of marketing essentially raising brand awareness.
(Souce: Thecouponmaker.com, 2015)
Once your digital coupon is made you will need to select the distribution methods.
Integrate with Email
Figures show how 40% of customers will share an email offer with their friends therefore it is important to ensure digital coupons integrate with your customers’ email. Capturing an email address provides you the opportunity to regularly update them on specials and discounts (Rarr, 2015).
Encourage sharing
Enable people to pass the deal along to friends by using tactics such as “Get 20% off when you refer a new customer”. Each coupon you send out via e-mail, on Twitter or Facebook, or post online should include an option such as “Share this coupon with a friend” so people can easily forward the discount onto their networks. Adding a feature that gathers the customer and adds them into a “public event” can also create a buzz around the offer so that people can see that there friends have claimed this offer. Stats show how 28% of consumers will share deals via social media platforms and that sharing now drives upwards of 33% of traffic as search, so it’s crucial to make your coupon shareable (Bostwick, 2015).
Facebook has recently added a new feature which can allow businesses to create and track digital coupon offers, the link provided below is a short step by step video showing how this can be done.
Use social shopping sites
In recent years, companies such as Groupon and Wowcher are becoming popular websites with large followings, and businesses are becoming very aware of this and choosing this as a distribution method. Most businesses pay nothing up front and it is only when a sale is made that they are remunerated at a fixed agreed percentage of the sale (Wowcher.co.uk, 2015). Once the agreement is made the offer is posted on to the site and at the least this acts as free advertising for the business. The effectiveness of using these social shopping sites will be something that will be further investigated in bog 5.
(Wowcher.co.uk, 2015)
Use text message alerts
Coupons can be sent as messages immediately to the targeted mobile phone user or customer. Companies have started to use this kind of advertising method because users always carry their mobile phones with them. Thus, when a coupon is sent through mobile phone message, the user can immediately know the latest news and offers (Hsu, Wang, & Wen, 2006).
Once the Digital coupon has been distributed there are some further factors to consider..
Make sure that you can deal with the change in demand
There have been several instances when businesses have been inundated with new customers due to a coupon launch and have not been able to cope with the surge in demand. Recently Philz Coffee, a San Francisco coffee chain, offered Groupon discounted gift cards for in-store pickup orders. While initial expectations were for a few hundred customers, the actual turnout exceeded 2,000 customers. The coffee chain was not prepared to handle such a turnout and ended up angering many customers effectively damaging the brand (Kumar, Rajan 2012).
Measure the results
Ensure that you make regular reports to identify how successful the campaign is. By doing this from the start this will create a benchmark against which to compare future efforts. This way you can change your online coupons as you go to measure which promotions are more effective on the customers you’re trying to reach.
Each coupon can contain tracking codes that associate to certain elements. If you deployed coupons to users within three separate demographics, for instance, you can use a coupon code for each and gather information on which demographic was most responsive. It is also possible to identify the long-term success of each campaign by recognising which customers return without a coupon and which customers only visit when a coupon is being offered (Hendricks, 2013).
References
→, V. (2015). 7 Tips for Effective Digital Coupon Marketing | Marketing Technology. [online] Marketing Technology. Available at: https://www.marketingtechblog.com/digital-coupon-tips/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2015].
Bostwick, E. (2015). How to Develop a Successful Digital Coupon Campaign | Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy. [online] Convinceandconvert.com. Available at: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/how-to-develop-a-successful-digital-coupon-campaign/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2015].
Hendricks, D. (2013). 7 Tips For Effective Digital Coupon Marketing. [online] Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2013/09/23/7-tips-for-effective-digital-coupon-marketing/2/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2015].
(Hsu, Wang, & Wen, 2006). Using the decomposed theory of planning behavioural to analyse consumer behavioural intention towards mobile text message coupons. Journal Of Targeting, Measurement & Analysis For Marketing, 14(4), 309-324 [Accessed 7 Apr. 2015].
Kumar, V., & Rajan, B. (2012). Social coupons as a marketing strategy: A multifaceted perspective. Academy of Marketing Science.Journal, 40(1), 120-136. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11747-011-0283-0 [Accessed 8 Apr. 2015].
Mashable, (2010). HOW TO: Create and Distribute Effective Online Coupons. [online] Available at: http://mashable.com/2010/02/10/online-coupons/ [Accessed 9 Apr. 2015].
Thecouponmaker.com, (2015). Coupon Builder. [online] Available at: http://www.thecouponmaker.com/coupon/create [Accessed 7 Apr. 2015].
Wowcher.co.uk, (2015). Wowcher | Work With Us. [online] Available at: http://www.wowcher.co.uk/workwithus.html [Accessed 8 Apr. 2015].