Should Your Company Offer Coupon Codes?

Your company has developed a new product and your marketing team is trying to sell as many items as possible through the company’s website. The product does not sell as you expected, leading to one of the team members raising an idea…

‘What if we offer coupon codes to reduce the product’s purchase price? Fast forward to today as this business article was first published midway through 2018, and now coupon codes are in use everywhere so we have a lot more data to work with in assessing their value. The explosion of eCommerce sites and preference to shop online for almost everything has seen the relevance of using coupon codes to assist with:

• First online order
• Empty cart abandonment
• Forgotten customers
• Buy again
• Buy more

Who hasn’t enjoyed online shopping? If the only requirement is to provide an email address to get a discount code for the first purchase – it’s a no-brainer to do it.

You will give your customers a better deal than what they would receive anywhere else by issuing incentives. As much as this is a good thing, there may be an argument for only providing the coupons to people who didn’t have any plan of purchasing the product from your store.  Coupon codes can still be issued to every customer without exception, but then, the average profit per customer will reduce. Today volume of sales is the focus more so than profit per sale.

For online retailers, it’s better to sell more for less profit per item than less for more profit. Why? Well, you can afford less profit per item sold. Having taken your business online, you have fewer outgoings, including less staff, physical offices, furniture, utilities, signage and many more.

So what approaches can you implement to ensure that coupon code discounts achieve desired results?

Target potential customers

Growing your market reach beyond a specific location is achievable when your business is online. If your product can be bought from a competitor, your business needs to sway these consumers to buy from you. In your digital marketing, which can include:

• email marketing campaigns
• social media marketing
• PPC
• SMS marketing
• Video marketing

Engage a marketer who can craft content that will wow the recipients and add a coupon code to pull prospective customers to your online store. If the deal is good enough, any customer who needs the product you’re selling will be curious to know if they should buy from you rather than your competition.

Ensure customers return

Reward customers with coupon codes – just because you can, and you want them to know you value their custom.  If the customer makes an order, you can email them a coupon code to discount their next purchase. Plus a hard copy thank you with a coupon code in the order saying You can even go an extra mile to print out a ‘thank you’ will surprise and delight most consumers.

Create a sense of urgency

At times, a customer may be watching your advert thinking, ‘this product looks great, but I will purchase it later in the month’. By the end of the month, the customer has forgotten all about the product. How can you ensure that the customer follows through and completes the payment transaction is to surprise them with a discount. Or you can discount the price for a limited time only. No one wants to miss out on a bargain, especially when they’ve already decided they want the product.

Offering coupon codes is a perfect way to drive traffic to your business and get the conversion – i.e. they buy something from your online store.

Recycle your best performing coupon code strategies. Remember to closely analyze high performing campaigns and revise the others until they too get the traction you’re looking for with more customers and sales.