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Coupon marketing has emerged as a leading tool for branding and lead generation. The escalating challenge of decreasing brand loyalty among shoppers further complicates the landscape, prompting marketers to leverage discount coupon codes as a means of retaining consumers to a certain extent. With 90% of consumers using coupons, it’s clear that there’s a strong demand for deals.
Digital coupon redemptions are expected to surpass $90 billion by 2022, highlighting their growing importance. Additionally, 63% of shoppers express a desire for more accessible coupons, and emails featuring coupons see a significant revenue increase of 48% per email. However, it’s important to be aware of potential downsides. Over-reliance on coupons can diminish a brand’s perceived value, and regularly offering discounts may lead to delayed and less profitable sales. Moreover, prominently displaying coupon codes during checkout can contribute to higher cart abandonment rates.
Utilising coupon codes in marketing strategies offers numerous benefits for brands, aiding in customer retention and engagement in a competitive marketplace.
First Things First – What is Coupon Marketing?
Coupon marketing campaigns serve various purposes, offering a straightforward approach to building brand recognition, especially when entering new markets or launching a business. Additionally, coupons effectively attract new customers and facilitate their conversion into loyal patrons.
This article delves into the rationale behind employing coupon marketing campaigns, providing insights into effective deployment strategies. Furthermore, it highlights key considerations to avoid potential pitfalls and ensure the campaign contributes positively to business growth. Shoppers are drawn to savings, making coupons and discount codes a compelling tool for digital marketers introducing new customers to products or services.
10 Top Coupon Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Brand Value and Sales:
Coupon marketing is a powerful tool for marketers looking to attract new customers, retain existing ones, and boost overall brand awareness. As a marketer, I understand the significance of special offers in sales and lead generation.
It can enhance a brand’s presence and appeal so below I list the best ways to leverage coupon marketing strategies:
1. Partner with Top Coupon Sites
Collaborate with popular coupon sites to feature your discounts and offers. This increases visibility and drives traffic to a brand. In the past, coupons in the UK predominantly targeted grocery items, but today, the range of categories has significantly broadened. Top UK coupon websites now offer vouchers applicable to a diverse array of products and services. These coupons can be utilised for various purposes, spanning from web hosting packages to entertainment and beauty treatments, among others. Several platforms offer access to over 24,000 brands and more than 100,000 coupon codes, allowing users to take advantage of the most competitive cashback and commission rates available.
2. Plan Exclusive Deals
While spur-of-the-moment deals may create initial excitement, meticulously planned ones sustain long-term interest. An actionable step involves crafting a 12-month forecast of potential deals, and strategically aligning them with notable dates and industry events. For instance, in the electronics sector, integrating offers around tech events can provide a significant advantage. Research indicates a substantial demand for deals, with nearly 60% of consumers visiting coupon websites every week, or even multiple times daily. By preplanning deals, businesses can consistently provide fresh and enticing offerings to cater to this eager customer base.
3. Utilise Digital Coupons Effectively
Coupons hold significant value for e-commerce platforms as they serve as catalysts for customer action. Particularly, new or emerging brands stand to gain considerable advantages from offering coupons. According to research conducted by Inmar Intelligence, 54% of shoppers are inclined to purchase from a new brand due to its cost-effectiveness, with approximately one-third being influenced by digital coupons. By implementing an effective coupon email marketing strategy, marketers can target customers in their preferred online spaces by email for example. By leveraging factors like relevance, timeliness, and perceived value within coupon email campaigns, marketers can effectively enhance exposure and drive customer engagement to product or service pages.
4. Combine Seasonal and Event-Based Promotions
Utilising a promotional calendar allows for strategic timing of promotions to achieve optimal impact, aligning them with holidays, special occasions, or seasonal trends. Customising a marketing timeline based on targeted events, whether it’s Boxing Day for UK customers or Lunar New Year for buyers in Asia, enhances effectiveness. It also increases brand engagement especially on social media as you can see in one of the posts I’ve designed for the londonbusinessnews.com magazine in our London Life FB page to encourage more people to read our articles: 
5. Leverage Social Media
Another effective tactic to enhance your coupon marketing strategy involves promoting new products and discounts through social media channels. With billions of users active on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, incorporating regular discount sharing into your strategy is essential. Nonetheless, caution should be exercised to avoid excessive coupon usage. Constant sales may diminish the perceived value of your products, potentially leading your audience to view your coupon strategy as merely a ploy to acquire more emails or followers through lead magnets. It’s important to link your discount offers with events or compelling reasons and to utilise not only your social media channels but also groups and topical pages as I showed above. On top of that, you can also run paid social media ads for your discount campaigns where you can target very specific groups.
6. Strategic Email Segmentation
Segmenting your email list according to behaviour, interests, and purchase history enables the creation of targeted coupon campaigns for each subgroup. To implement this strategy effectively, review your CRM data to discern customer trends and utilise insights garnered to craft personalised offers using email marketing tools. Tailoring discount coupon emails not only enriches the customer experience but also boosts conversion rates. Furthermore, consider incorporating coupon links into various types of emails, including signup or subscription confirmation emails, promotional content, and other email marketing campaigns.
7. Introduce First-Time Sign-up Discounts
The initial step in the customer journey involves enticing users to sign up, a task often hindered by reluctance upon encountering sign-up forms. Utilising discount coupons effectively can serve as a persuasive tool in overcoming this obstacle. Leveraging lead forms, homepages, and landing pages as strategic assets, tailored to cater to business needs and customer preferences, enhances their efficacy as lead magnets. By deploying these lead magnets as pop-ups triggered by specific user actions—such as spending a designated time on the website or scrolling through a significant portion of the webpage—marketers can seize ample opportunities to entice and convert visitors into subscribers.
8. Include Referral Programs
Enhance your coupon marketing strategy by incorporating a referral program. Begin by providing existing customers with unique coupon codes they can share with friends. When these codes are used by their friends for their initial purchase, both parties receive a special discount or reward. This approach facilitates customer-driven growth, as existing customers contribute to bringing in new ones while ensuring mutual benefits for all involved. Referral marketing emerges as a straightforward yet impactful method to expand your customer base while fostering satisfaction among all participants.
9. Implement Retargeting Campaigns with Coupons
Employ retargeting ads as a strategic approach to reconnect with customers who have previously visited your site but did not complete a purchase. By offering them a coupon code as an incentive to return, you can effectively encourage them to reconsider their decision. Retargeting ads serve as a powerful tool to re-engage potential customers, leveraging their prior interest to drive conversion. By providing a compelling incentive in the form of a coupon code, you not only increase the likelihood of attracting them back to your site but also enhance the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
10. Use high-end creative Visuals
Fundamentally, coupons serve as an invitation for customers to make a purchase. While coupon codes can be transmitted as simple text messages, enhancing them with visually appealing elements adds excitement and allure for customers. Incorporating vibrant graphics, captivating colours, and appealing fonts in your coupon design enhances its attractiveness and entices customers to engage with the offer. Especially when integrated into an email or social media campaign as part of your coupon marketing strategy, tailoring visual elements to correspond with different customer segments further enhances the effectiveness of your promotional efforts.
At the London Business News magazine for example. I invite businesses to share special offers or deals and we design the images for them, here is one example:
As you can see, we use the client’s logo and images for branding, we include their discount offer in combination with an introduction to their services and a website link. This way people become familiar with the brand while understanding what they’re about and landing them as a new client with a discount. I explain this in more detail here:
5 Benefits of Coupon Marketing
There are many excellent and effective benefits you’ll get when you use digital vouchers.
1. Attracting New Customers with Discount Coupons:
Discount coupons serve as powerful tools for brands to entice customers to try their products or services at a reduced price or with added incentives. Research suggests that approximately 60% of consumers are more inclined to experiment with a new product or service if they receive a coupon, thus accelerating customer conversion rates and ultimately boosting revenue for the organisation.
2. Streamlined Digital Couponing:
Digital couponing offers a time-efficient approach to marketing, delivering nearly instant results without the need for physical printing and distribution. By uploading coupons to various online platforms, brands can efficiently reach their target audience while reducing environmental impact, making it a convenient and eco-friendly marketing solution.
3. Drive Sales of New Products:
Coupon marketing isn’t just about attracting new customers and re-engaging existing ones; it’s also highly effective in boosting sales of newly launched products or services. By offering special access or early bird discount codes to loyal customers, brands can incentivize purchases and foster a sense of value among shoppers, leading to increased sales performance and successful product launches.
4. Data Collection Opportunities:
Digital coupons provide brands with valuable opportunities to gather customer data and personalise their marketing efforts. Offering discounts in exchange for email sign-ups enables businesses to expand their email community while gaining insights into customer preferences and behaviour, ultimately facilitating more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
5. Demonstrating Customer Appreciation:
Coupons and vouchers serve as tangible expressions of appreciation for customer loyalty, demonstrating to clients that their patronage is valued beyond monetary transactions. By offering discounts and special deals, businesses can strengthen customer relationships, foster goodwill, and stay ahead of competitors in a competitive market landscape.
Conclusion
In conclusion, coupon marketing campaigns offer a plethora of benefits for businesses, ranging from attracting new customers and driving sales to fostering customer loyalty and brand recognition. By leveraging various strategies such as partnering with top coupon sites, planning exclusive deals, utilising digital coupons, and implementing referral programs, brands and marketers can effectively enhance their market presence and appeal to consumers. The ability to segment email lists, employ retargeting campaigns, and integrate high-end visual elements into coupon designs adds depth and effectiveness to marketing efforts. With careful planning and execution, coupon marketing remains a powerful tool for brands seeking to maximise their brand value and drive sales growth in today’s competitive market landscape.
Blogger and Educator by Passion | Senior Online Media & PR Strategist at ClickDo Ltd. | Contributor to many Education, Business & Lifestyle Blogs in the United Kingdom & Germany | Summer Course Student at the London School of Journalism and Course Instructor at the SeekaHost University.