Why Your Company Should be Using Coupons

Business  

If you are an online retailer, reseller, or sell anything at all online, you are probably already well aware of the benefit of offering discounts and coupons. The hardest decision here isn't what to discount or when to offer a discount, but rather how you are going to deliver it in a way that creates maximum engagement and conversions.

Of the options available, email seems to be the most obvious first choice. If you have a solid contact list with a large number of email addresses in your sales funnel and a discount that will get your customers' and leads' attention, this is the simplest and most effective option available to you.

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Pros and Cons of Coupon and Discount Offers

While coupons and discounts may be easy to implement and track, they also deplete your profits and can even decrease conversions. If your customers have grown accustomed to look for offers and coupons in your emails, odds are good that they will never pay full retail. That means that your sale prices need to be set at a reasonable profit margin so that your frequent promotions don't result in losses.

The upside to this is that your audience has become conditioned to associate your emails with savings. You can use this to your advantage by aligning the content of your email with their expectations. This helps you build trust with the people on your list and people want to do business with brands they trust.

How to Use Coupons Effectively

There are many types of emails you can use to present and promote coupons and discounts in your email campaigns. Some of the more effective methods recommended by successful email marketers include:

1. Email Blasts - 

Use weekly email blast marketing campaigns to boost engagement, increase conversions, and pad your bottom line. Many tight sales goals have been met with the inclusion of a one-time or multi-day email blast. If your efforts prove successful, be sure to include email response in your sales projections. You can always increase your company's revenue goals as your success with email coupon marketing improves. A successful email blast can increase conversions by 3 to 5 percent on average.

2. Product Pre -

Launch Sequences - Do you have a major product launch coming up? If so, you might want to grab a few early adopters by offering a list-exclusive coupon code for use on pre-orders. Mention the coupon code in all subsequent messages in your campaign, being sure to provide information in a way that makes the reader more curious about the product. The coupon is your hook because, at the end of the day, saving money is huge motivator, especially when considering purchasing an unfamiliar product or service.

3. Seasonal Coupon Codes - 

The holidays are the perfect time to take advantage of your customers' buying mindsets. Set up a drip marketing campaign to offer extra discounts when they are already looking for ways to save, you cater to that desire at a pivotal moment. Many people are in perpetual “spend mode” at that time of year; it's a great time to give your bottom line a significant boost so come up with an offer and send out a good blast sequence to promote it.

4. Cart Abandon Coupons – 

Cart abandon sequences can recover 30 percent or better of sales that would be lost otherwise. Start with an email that lets the customer know that you have saved his or her cart, then offer a modest yet attractive discount with a personal promo code that can be applied to the purchase at checkout. Be sure to drive scarcity as part of your email strategy (“this offer ends at 11:59:59 EDT tonight!”).

The recommendations in this article outline just a few of the ways you can maximize the effectiveness of coupons in email. We suggest that you test all of them, as well as any ideas that come to you that are not on our list. You know your audience better than anyone and you know what buttons to push to make them respond.

By  Kevin Faber	Embed
Kevin Faber is the CEO of Silver Summit Capital. He graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in Business/Managerial Economics. In his free time, Kevin is usually watching basketball or kicking back and reading a good book.