Business coupons are a great way to spread awareness and encourage people to visit your store. Here’s a quick look at why they’re great for business.
Did you know that 97% of American consumers use business coupons? You may be surprised to learn that 38% purchase more than they planned because of a coupon.
It’s easy to see how valuable coupons are in influencing consumers to make purchases. And because of this, smart business owners know that creating a cohesive coupon strategy is a must.
However, many assume coupons are only for retailers and not for service-oriented businesses. While you may assume that your clients won’t enjoy a percentage off sale, this couldn’t be further from the truth!
In this guide, we will take a closer look at how coupons can help increase sales for your business. We’ll also give you some helpful tips on building your own coupon strategy.
Crafting a Strategy
It’s crucial that you don’t send out business coupons without a plan in place. If you don’t have a strategy, you likely won’t be as successful as you want to be.
Set Your Goals
As a business manager, it’s crucial that you have a clear set of goals. Knowing exactly what you want to accomplish will help you and your team be more focused and organized.
Having goals will also help keep you accountable as well. They will make it easier to track your progress and you’ll be able to identify issues quicker.
This is especially true when it comes to business coupons. Releasing coupons before having a plan or a goal can be detrimental to your profits. Be sure to take your time formulating a plan.
Know Your Audience
You’ll need different marketing strategies for different demographics. This means you must know your audience before creating your business coupons.
How do they get their information? What do they spend their money on? What is their average?
These are three example questions that you should be asking yourself as you make your coupons. These answers will help you create the best and most relevant coupons for your target audience.
Set Terms and Conditions
The next step is to create the terms and conditions of your coupons. The last thing you want to do is confuse your consumers. The purchase requirements, limitations, and expiration date should be clear.
You’re giving out coupons to make your clients happy. If the conditions are unclear, you run the risk of upsetting your consumers, which will negatively affect your business.
Choose the Right Coupons
After you’ve decided on the terms and conditions, you’ll need to decide which coupons you’re going to send out. Keep your business goals and audience in mind during this process.
Buy one, get one (BOGO), percentage discounts, and free offers with purchase as several popular coupons that businesses tend to use. If you’ve never used coupons for your company before, it may take some trial and error before you find the ones that work best for you.
It’s important that you don’t copy your competitors. Your competition may use BOGO coupons, but that may not be the best option for you.
Promote
The last step in creating a business marketing strategy is to promote your coupons. They won’t do any good if no one knows about them.
This is where knowing your audience also comes in handy. If you know where they get their information, you’ll be able to get the coupons to them easier.
Which social media platform do they use the most? Do they check their emails frequently?
Promote your coupons as much as possible and be sure to use multiple outlets.
Measuring the Impact of Coupons
Before putting out business coupons for your customers to use, it’s important that you gather some data. In order to measure the impact the coupons are having on your business, you must know where you started.
Compare Sales
Before offering coupons, look at how many sales you have. What is your weekly and monthly revenue?
Log that information. Then send out coupons.
You’ll then want to recalculate how many sales you have. You’ll be able to see how successful your coupons were and what effect they had on your business.
Pay attention to Customer Retention
When you’re measuring the impact of coupons, you’ll want to pay attention to customer retention. This data may not show up right away.
For example, if you offer a cleaning service, your clients may not need your services again for another few weeks or even a month. You may even have clients that don’t schedule another cleaning appointment for three to six months.
It can take some time, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t see return customers for a while. Continue to gather the data and then compare.
By tracking this information, you’ll be able to see how many customers came back to your business after you ran the promotion.
Calculate ROI
It’s vital that you calculate your ROI (return on investment). Pay attention to how much it costs to run the coupons or discounts and then track how much revenue you make from it.
If you spent more on printing and distributing your coupons than you made from the promotion, you will need to change some things for the next time. If you don’t take the time to calculate the ROI, you’ll never have this information and could potentially lose a lot of money.
Track Coupon Usages
Tracking the use of coupons is one of the easiest ways to measure their success. Know how many you have sent out and count how many have been used and redeemed. It’s as simple as that.
Ask Your Consumers
Another great way to measure the success of your coupons is to ask your customers. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Use surveys to gather feedback from your clients.
Are they satisfied with your business or do they think some changes need to be made? This information will allow you to improve and see the impact your coupons are having on your audience.
Benefits
If you’ve never run discounts or sent out coupons, you may not realize that there are many benefits. As a new business owner, it’s important to know how you can use coupons to increase your profits.
If you’ve been in business for a long time and have never implemented coupons, don’t worry, it’s not too late to start.
Attract New Customers
Gaining new customers is never a bad thing; however, it can be challenging. Offering discounts is one way to do it.
If someone isn’t sure if they will enjoy your product or service, they may not want to buy it at full price. They will be more likely to try it if there’s a coupon available.
Your business coupons should be enticing and attention-grabbing. While you want to attract new customers, don’t forget to appeal to your current clients as well.
Clear Inventory
If you’re in the business of selling products, you may have an overstock pile. Maybe you ordered too much or overestimated how many people would want the item.
Stock that you’re having a hard time selling can cut into your profits and take up too much space. Coupons are a great way to clear out unwanted inventory.
You’ll still be able to make a profit and you won’t have to continue storing the items. Selling these slow-moving goods is a great way to free up space for more fast-moving inventory.
Encourage Brand Loyalty
Customer retention is key when you’re growing a business. Treating your existing customers right and showing them that you value and appreciate their business can go a long way.
People will continue to come back to your company if you provide quality products and services. A great way to thank your repeat customers is to offer exclusive discounts and coupons. This will help build brand loyalty and bring more business in.
Increase Sales
Limited-time coupons are a great way to increase your sales. It will instill a sense of urgency and encourage customers to act quickly.
Some of your clientele may not be able to afford your product or service at the regular price. You’ll open yourself up to a whole new audience and increase your sales.
It’s important that you don’t offer a coupon with too high of a discount. While you want to open yourself up to more sales, you don’t want to lose money on the sale.
Track Marketing Strategies
If your team is struggling to track marketing strategies, try offering coupons. When you track how many people used your coupons, you can see how your marketing strategies are doing.
If the discount code was only used a few times, you’ll know that you need to reevaluate your marketing. If sales increase and lots of people make purchases with the coupons, then you know your marketing strategies are successful.
Potential Downsides
While there are countless benefits, there could also be a few downsides when it comes to business coupons. It’s important that you are aware of the potential issues so that you actively avoid them.
Brand Imaging
Your brand’s image is a key component of your business. It’s hard, and it takes time to build your image to what you want it to be. It takes patience and thoughtfulness.
Before offering an instant discount to your customers, think about how it will affect your brand’s image. Luxury brands don’t often offer discounts as they can be seen as cheap. This isn’t always the case, but it is something you need to think about.
Decreased Perceived Value
You should always think about the future when discussing marketing tips. That’s why planning and goal setting is so important. If you’re always offering discounts and coupons, your audience may start to see your product or service as less valuable.
This could make it challenging to charge the full price in the future. Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t offer coupons.
It simply means that you should be strategic about how often and when you offer discounts. You shouldn’t constantly be offering offer coupons, which is why clear expiration dates are so important.
Overuse of Coupons
If your business overuses coupons, customers may wait to purchase until there is a discount available. If all your consumers are purchasing with coupons, it could be challenging to increase revenue and profits.
Physical Coupons vs. Digital coupons
Physical and digital coupons are not created equal. There are pros and cons to both, so let’s dive in.
Physical coupons are much more expensive and will require you to use a lot of your resources. You’ll have to pay for them to be printed out at pgprint.com and then you’ll need to distribute them.
They can be very beneficial when you’re trying to target a specific audience. You can distribute them to previous customers and send them out to places you know your consumers are.
Digital coupons are less expensive; however, when you’re posting online, it can be hard to know if your ideal client is seeing them. I
Business Coupons
Running a business is a challenging task. No one can deny that. Making a profit while putting out quality services and products can be overwhelming and stressful.
As you continue to grow, business coupons may be a good strategy to implement. It can take some time to learn, but the tips above will help you be successful. Don’t lose sight of your mission and always keep the consumer in mind.
We hope you’ve found this marketing guide helpful. For more business advice, keep browsing our site. We have more blogs and articles that you’ll find useful as you navigate the business world.
