Coupon marketing has proven to be a very effective tool to capture the imagination of newer and existing customers. As a result, many brands have been using coupons efficiently to drive sales and enhance customer engagement at the store level or in the online shopping world. Of course, brands must invest much effort in implementing a successful coupon marketing strategy. However, unlike other marketing tools, tracking a coupon marketing campaign’s success is more manageable and gives the brand a clearer picture of its performance. Therefore, brands have started tracking coupons to understand their advertising spending performance and the return on investment. Although there are many benefits associated with coupon marketing, it is of utmost importance to execute seamlessly, considering many factors. This blog will discuss some of the critical factors that will help brands devise a successful coupon marketing strategy.

Set clear campaign goals

Before deciding what types of coupons you will use in your coupon marketing campaign, brands should clearly understand the goals they are trying to achieve from the entire activity. For example, is the whole objective to drive more traffic to your online store, get to know more potential customers, drive sales and create brand awareness, or offload the excessive inventory you are sitting on.

Once you have decided on the objectives and goals of your campaign, you can start to evaluate the market and the competition. First, determine how big the market is for your products and what the competition is doing to attract the consumers—research the discounts and offers they dole out. Understanding the market and how consumers behave toward several coupons will help you design a better product coupon strategy.

Coupon distribution strategy

Once you have decided on the kind of coupon you want to introduce in the market to lure shoppers to visit your online store, you need to determine the coupon distribution strategy. For example, if you wish to send your discount coupons through e-mails, SMS, or social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, it depends entirely on your target audience and where they are expected to spend most of their time. Other ways to distribute the coupons are through influencers and affiliate partner sites.

Weighing the pros and cons of each medium and the cost associated with different distribution techniques, brands should decide on how to move ahead. The main idea behind any successful coupon marketing strategy is that your voucher should reach the potential target audience, not the other way around.

Give relevant and customized offers

To get the best results out of your coupon marketing campaigns, brands should come out with offers that are relevant to the consumers and is in line or better than the competition. Apart from discounts, pamper your shoppers with various add-on features like free shipping, reward points, cashback, and easy returns. These won’t cost much but will make you stand out in the crowd.

Besides promotions, creating personalized discount coupons for your regular customers based on their earlier shopping habits is a sure-shot way to get more conversions. Many research reports have suggested that today’s shoppers like to shop with brands that offer highly personalized deals and promotions.

Segment your customers

Not all customers are the same, and neither is their shopping behavior. So the brands should divide their consumers into different segments based on their shopping preferences and start targeting them with different coupons rather than just sending out the same coupon to every user.

For example, brands can segment their audience based on demographics or geographies or can segment them into new and existing consumers. This will help the marketers send out relevant coupons to their audience, generating better conversions.

Track your performance

After implementing your coupon marketing plan, brands should continuously monitor their campaign performance. They should identify coupons helping the campaign to scale and the factors creating challenges in the growth. Being on top of the campaign’s performance will allow the brand to take corrective measures if any are required and get the campaign back on track. Tracking the performance will also enable the brands to determine the ROI they generated from the whole exercise and whether it was worth investing time and resources into their campaign.