Businesses all over the world have already switched to online mode in the last decade, it is no more a new concept. Even the grocery shop near you either has its own online platform or is selling through a big e-commerce website. From 10-year-old kids to 80-year-old grannies, everyone is purchasing online. But competition in the online segment is as stiff as it is in the physical marketplace. Everyone is trying to win over the consumers with innovative marketing tactics.
Coupons although are old tools for attracting customers but they seem to be the most effective idea as far as gaining potential customers to purchase your products or services. Coupons are equally effective in online and offline marketing and even in affiliate marketing and blogging and even the newer concept like influencer marketing.
You must have noticed influencers giving their coupon code to get a particular discount on the purchase of the product. Companies use the popularity of these influencers to gain and retain customers. These influencers catering to various niches have a great impact on their followers. Fitness, lifestyle, and fashion brands particularly use these influencers to provide specific discounts to their followers if they choose to purchase using their coupon codes.
Besides discount coupons, there are scholarship coupons as well. Bhavin Swadas Founder of Coupon Saturn and Coupon Stroller says " I have seen the organization in the education sector providing scholarship coupons to bright students or aspirants. For example, if a student who deserves to get admission but finds the fee of the institution to be out of his range, companies offer them scholarship coupons from anywhere between 20%-80% where they are given an eligibility test, and based on the marks obtain they can use a particular coupon code to get the scholarship of a particular percentage." His website has a whole list of educational, sports, or other firms providing discount coupons on various courses.
The coupon marketing strategy works both ways in new customer acquisition as well as customer retention. Various coupon-providing websites work on these formulae only. They are not only getting new customers looking for discount coupons on their choice of e-commerce or offline store and the customers who have already found the best-discounted coupons here revisit them as they know this is the place where they will get coupon codes with the maximum possible discount. Companies even use this tool for recurring sales by providing discount coupons with a date tag on the present purchase of a particular amount. Customers can use these codes only when they purchase between that particular date range.
Companies also use affiliate marketers to increase customer attraction and retention. These affiliate marketers generally use well-conceptualized blogs and provide a link to various e-commerce websites with coupon codes, so the traffic coming to their blog is also diverted to the client's website, giving them new customers in bulk who are tempted to use these discount coupons to purchase the products.
A discount coupon strategy is not only viable to market new products but also for offloading products. This is particularly beneficial for a seller who sells seasonal products. When they want to offload these products from the websites, they provide coupon codes with heavy discounts and market these codes on various platforms, resulting in these products being sold quickly, saving the cost of keeping and maintenance.
So, coupons are great marketing and selling tools for customer acquisition retention. It also helps in increasing sales volume. Companies entering an online business must use this old tool with new twists to increase profits.
