If you’re like most people in the world, you probably (most definitely) have used a coupon at one time or another when making a purchase. And if you’re anything like us, you’ve probably even spent hours at your kitchen table with Grandma dutifully cutting out coupons from your Sunday circular.
Fortunately for the world’s trees and your Sunday afternoons (sorry Grandma), getting coupons is much easier now. Today, our coupons are simple online codes, and it’s commonplace to use them both as a consumer and as a business.
If you’re wondering why businesses are so eager to hand out coupons, it’s because it’s a GREAT way to draw in customers that are on the fence (as many as 96% of consumers use coupons). Plus, coupons encourage impulse buys, and as a business that’s always a good thing.
But before you go into your ecommerce platform and start creating coupons left and right, it’s good to have a little strategy in place. Read on to discover 5 important tips for using coupons to get sales.
1) Be discerning in your use of coupons
Is this a good time to mention that Kartra has a comprehensive coupon feature that makes it easy to create a variety of offers for any and all products in your collection? No? Okay, we’ll tell you about it later.
Once you have access to the ability to produce coupons for your products, it’s easy to get carried away and throw them around like confetti. Go right ahead if you need to get it out of your system, but once you’ve got your head back on straight, think carefully about what you’re offering and study your analytics carefully to discern the effect.
For example, if you have a product that is already converting well at full-price, is a coupon increasing sales sufficiently to make up for the reduced price that you’re offering? Generally speaking, coupons are most profitable when they’re used to boost sales of an underperforming product.
2) Use retargeting to offer coupons to prospects
Okay since earlier wasn’t a good time to mention that Kartra has an amazing coupon feature that makes it simple to create a variety of offers for the products in your collection, we’ll just go ahead and let you know about it now…
Kartra has a superb coupon feature that makes it easy to create a huge variety of offers for all of the products in your collection!
There are many, many ways to use coupons and we’re only going to cover a handful in this article, but perhaps the chief benefit is encouraging prospects that leave your website without making a purchase to come back and buy.
If you’re unfamiliar with retargeting, it’s a method that uses cookies to remember when someone has visited your website or clicked on one of your ads, and then serves up “reminder” ads through third-party networks, such as Google’s pay-per-click platform. The challenge with retargeting is that, while you’re serving ads to prospects who have already seen your product, you need to offer them a good incentive to return.
Sometimes the repeated exposure is sufficient, but it’s much more effective to insert a coupon code DIRECTLY onto the ad, and link that advert directly to your checkout page.
3) Use coupons during pre-launch
If you’re planning a big product launch, the pre-launch is an essential time for getting prospects into a lather. Keeping their attention, however, is a challenge, and it’s traditional to reward pre-launch subscribers with bonus content or special offers.
For the latter, try using coupons as an incentive to register for the pre-launch list that promises an exclusive discount on the launch price.
If you want to spice this up a little further, promise the coupon code at the beginning of the campaign but announce that they’ll be hidden inside one of the pre-launch emails. Not only does this incentivize signups, it also increases engagement with your emails.
By the way, did we mention that that Kartra has a comprehensive coupon feature that makes it easy to create a variety of offers for any and all products in your collection? Alright, alright… just checking.
4) Create time-limited and themed coupons
Need an excuse to create more coupons? Of course not – make as many as you want!
But if you want a little more structure behind your frantic couponing, create time-limited coupons (valid for a couple days, hours or weeks) that coincide with holidays or other important events.
It’s Arbor Day! Plant this 10% coupon and watch it flourish.
It’s Pancake Day! Flip this coupon into your basket for 25% off.
It’s Star Wars Day! Use this Death Star coupon to destroy 50% of the regular price. Unless you’re a pedantic fanboy who can’t just enjoy the new movie and, instead, has to whine about everything just to prove how much pointless trivia you know – no coupon for you!
And so on…
5) Embrace coupon sharing (or not)
We’ve all been on the verge of purchasing something and been unable to resist opening a tab and googling, “<product name> coupon code.”
Do you feel guilty doing this? No? Just us? Okay…
The fact is, a lot of companies are more than happy to have their coupons uploaded to sharing sites because it’s another way of promoting the product. Try reaching out to some of the larger coupon sites and you’ll find many have an official route for adding and featuring your coupons.
At the risk of sounding like a nag, make sure you track the usage of coupons carefully. Create specific coupons for the sharing site so you can see whether it’s bringing in enough business to warrant the discount you’re offering.
And if you really hate the idea of people sharing your coupons without permission, just set a short expiry date.
The usage of coupons can further be improved by rewarding e.g. site visitors for their actions on the site with higher discounts, e.g. “Thanks for visiting our site today. You have earned a 5% discount. Click here to get the code.” If people don’t take you up on the offer but stay on the site you can send them a higher discount, like this “Thanks for comparing prices on our site. You have earned a 10% discount” and “Thanks for checking out our awesome user reviews. You have earned a 15% discount.” etc. until they have reached the maximum discount.
After doing all ‘that hard work’ on the site, tests show that people now feel they have ‘earned’ that discount and dispite of not really needing that coupon for any particular purchase right now, they still will get the coupon they have ‘earned’.
Additionnally, people with earned coupons are also more likely to use their coupons since they feel a greater attachment to these hard earned coupons and do not want them to expire.
Wow! Great additional insight on coupons Karl! Thank you for adding it =)
My pleasure Andrea. I got this from Yu-kai (Chou), gamification guru.
I think this is an amazing coupon and it is very useful. I really enjoyed reading this post. big fan, thank you!
Hello, I am new to all of this online marketing, and I have a question about Kartra coupons:
Let’s say I am selling a product for $10 and I am giving my affiliates 50% of the sale ($5).
If I decide to give my best affiliate a coupon code for 50% to present to his audience, when somebody buys the product for the discounted price of $5, using the coupon code, I assume that my affiliate receives a commission of $2.5, half of what the customer paid, not $5, 50% of the initial price.
Is this correct?
Hi Cosmin, that’s a great question! While configuring the affiliate settings for your product, the affiliate commission can be set to be either a percentage of the total price, or a fixed amount. If you set it up as a percentage, let’s say 50%, the affiliate will receive half of what was paid. In other words, if a coupon reduces the product price to $5, the affiliate will receive $2.50. However, if the affiliate commission is set up to be a fixed amount of $5, then that’s what the affiliate will receive regardless of the coupon used for the sale.
I believe saving money is an amazing skill that every person should have. Great content and blog here. Loved your post and website.
Coupons and vouchers always attract the customers ! your ideas are according to the point !
I think coupons are the best money saving essentials I’ve got a lot of times by ordering some online meals and deals.