In today’s market, shoppers don’t want to pay full price, and companies want to drive more sales with the use of high-quality coupon codes. Turning leads into sales should be easier than ever in this type of environment, but you still need to be set up to convert leads with coupon marketing in effective ways. Simply having coupons is not always enough.
How can you create the structures necessary to drive more engagement, conversions, and sales through coupon marketing? Whether you’re marketing a new product, improving your sales numbers, or helping your clients do the same, these are the tips that you need to learn from today.
The Power Of Digital Coupons
The focus of today’s tips on creating more conversions is on couponing in the digital space. While there are still many benefits of physical coupons, the universality of online shopping cannot be denied. More companies than ever are doing sales in a digital space, and customers expect to be able to connect here.
When you improve your digital coupon marketing, you improve your chance for conversions. Effective digital coupon marketing ensures that you are meeting modern customers where they are shopping: on apps, websites, and other digital spaces.
Data suggests that digital coupon redemptions will surpass $22 billion by 2022; companies don’t want to miss out on that. Finding ways to harness the momentum and generate more conversions through coupon marketing is not to be missed.
#1: Test Different Channels
Companies often notice that a coupon they send out via email has a much better use rate than those released on social media; Opportunities are endless knowing that there are 3.9 billion email users in 2019 and by 2023, this number will reach 4.3 billion!
Different channels have different audiences. Additionally, different types of people are more likely to check one place for a coupon (like coupon websites) than they are to check somewhere else. To create conversions, it’s key to ensure coupons show up in the right places.
Create ways to try different coupons on different channels, and then compare the results in detail. You can use an app like Coupon X for this. The data gathered will give a unique insight into each specific audience and what they respond to. That data can then be used to implement more effective conversion strategies as part of your coupon marketing plans.
#2: Just Ask!
While this is unlikely to be the crux of any coupon marketing strategy, gathering data directly from customers is a great way to improve on what is already working while identifying what is not in more direct ways.
Offer a coupon code, such as 20% off, in exchange for doing a short survey that is no more than five minutes long. Use this survey to gather data that will help you improve conversions. Ask questions relevant to the current marketing end goal:
- “Why did you decide not to buy [X item removed from cart]?”
- “Were the prices what you expected?”
- “Were you able to find a coupon?”
- “Would you be more likely to buy more if you had a coupon code, or would you just buy the same amount at a lower price?”
These questions should be tailored to gather the specific data needed to work on a specific strategy. Gathering this data, of course, relies on having the right analytics tools in place, so be sure that everything is set up as needed to help things grow.
#3: Let Potential Customers Know
Many brands make the mistake of not making their coupons visible enough because they do not want to lose out on potential profit, but this is a big mistake. Visible, easy-to-use coupons are known to increase profits because sales increase enough to overcome the amount “lost” in offering discounts.
Additionally, potential customers are much easier to convert through a clear, useful discount.
Optimizing popups is one way to ensure that potential customers can be alerted about discounts in a quick, clear way. With discounts that they have to physically move out of the way, these shoppers must take a moment to pause and consider if they are interested in savings. If they find savings enticing, conversion rates will likely improve.
Of course, pop ups aren’t the only way to ensure customers know about savings:
- Generate an email list for customers interested in future discounts and product releases
- Have pop ups or header text to alert customers when they’re close to reading a threshold for an additional discount (such as free shipping)
Get creative about how to address potential customers: wherein the shopping funnel is it most important for them to be alerted about discounts? Identify this location and find how to implement effective coupon marketing there.
#4: Diversify Coupon Offers
Businesses are well aware that dollar-amount discounts and percent off coupons are most popular with customers, but significantly improving conversion rates requires things to be addressed on a broader scale. Where are potential customers falling through the funnel, and can a coupon to address that drop-off point be created?
There are many different types of coupons that can be generated, and they each target different goals. Converting leads into sales successfully requires diversification to address this. Consider coupons for the following:
- Plan for weekly or monthly coupons for regular sales pushes
- Pre-launch coupons
- Exclusive coupons for social media followers
- Offers only for returning customers
- Submitting coupons to popular coupon sites
- Opt-in coupons on your website
- Discounts only for those on an exclusive list, such as email marketing lists
- Holiday-specific offers
- Brand-specific offers, such as an anniversary coupon
- Referral program and associated coupons
Each of these can be used in different ways to accomplish different goals. A company that wants to convert more of its social media followers into shoppers, for example, would do well at using a channel-specific coupon that can only be found on social media to entice some of those potential customers to convert.
Expanding the creativity you use to find new and interesting places to incorporate coupon marketing is sure to increase conversions and boost overall profits.
Getting started on so many different types of offers can be overwhelming, so don’t feel pressured to do everything at once. Plan which type of coupons to test by thinking first about your end goal and then building back to what will help accomplish that goal. This strategy can be incredibly useful in coupon marketing, especially when you have not yet started doing any extensive market testing.
Things To Avoid: Coupon Downfalls
Coupon marketing has a lot of strong points, and it’s possible to generate the perfect conversion plan through your marketing. It is important, however, to make sure that you don’t fall into these common coupon problems when creating your marketing plan.
#1: “Training” Customers To Wait For Sales
If you release coupons on a set schedule or create a system where coupons are not readily available but customers are always waiting for them, sales will be delayed or even completely abandoned.
Don’t train customers to wait for a better deal. Make sure that things are priced competitively, and use coupons to generate extra conversions beyond your baseline.
#2: Reduce Abandonment Issues
Companies have seen improvements in cart abandonment by cutting their process from 3 pages to 1. Some checkout cart layouts focus heavily on the coupon area. If a potential customer doesn’t have a coupon, this can lead to them becoming distracted while trying to find one. That customer may abandon their cart completely if a coupon isn’t found easily.
There are a lot of ways to approach this issue, but the key is identifying why conversions are falling apart at this stage. Then, reduce that issue. For some companies, this means making the coupon code input section smaller or more hidden. For others, it is automatically applying a 5% coupon after a certain amount of time if a coupon is not entered.
Work to generate a solution that works for your companies, clients, and business.
#3: Value Perception
Depending on the service or product being marketed, it’s key for any coupon marketing strategy to not take away from the value of the item. If a coupon on a specific item or a specific category is pushed in a needlessly aggressive way, it can lead to a reduction of its perceived value.
Be careful about marketing language, frequency, and audience to ensure that value is not incidentally diminished.
Remember: Test, and Test Some More
Each of these tips will work better for some business structures than others, so it’s going to be key for you to analyze how they work as you test out different solutions. The only way to be sure that you are converting more leads is if you have the figures to back it up.
Make sure that your analytics tools should show you what you want to know about your conversions, coupon marketing, and how the tools being implemented are working. Without this data, your solutions will be nothing more than guesses, and it will be hard to know if conversions will improve long term.
And finally, don’t be afraid to try something off the wall! As long as it isn’t going to eat away at profits, there’s no harm in seeing what sticks. Creative solutions are the way forward, and you can do that with the right tools, tips, and knowledge on hand.
