User:MalinowskiVarnell429
Recently i read a magazine called 'Marketing with New Media' by Lena Claxton and Alison Woo. One of the marketing concepts that they promote is by using coupons when emailing. This is a great idea because, let's face it, many people really like a freebie or a discount. The issue is how you can create a strategy which will promote your business without it costing an excessive amount of with what you give away together with your coupon.
The first technique is to decide what can be considered a product or service which a large number of people would be interested in. A free herring flavoured chocolate chip cookie wouldn't attract many purchasers. Nor would free chocolate cookies entice many purchasers to purchase more of unwanted weight loss products.
This is a great start, but then, the 2nd part, you might also need to consider whom you wish to attract. Would you like your overall customers to come back or are you currently more interested in bringing in new customers? It all depends to a certain extent on what is the reach of your e-zine or newsletter.
The 3rd question is do you want to create a loss in your coupon or not? Loss leaders can be great for getting the inquisitive customer, but give away too many and you'll have a big hole. This may be your decision, as you want to bring the shoppers to your online or physical shop.
Now it gets more difficult. Do you want to limit your coupons to some certain number? This can be done very easily if you are using an expert emailing service. These can be complicated and frequently expensive for set up so you can use professional resellers. Alternatively, you are able to declare in your coupon that will only apply to the very first 100 to present it, or until a particular date. Here, you may also add extra functionality online by requiring people to give more details about themselves when accessing or presenting the coupon. This applies both to on the internet and physical stores.
Then you have to determine how it will work. Set too many conditions and customers won't bother. I used to always present my loyalty card inside my supermarket and then try to buy those products that I'd coupons to give me extra points. However the conditions for redeeming those points were so desperately and I needed to have spent a lot money to gain so very little, I threw my loyalty card away.
Lastly, you have the graphical style of the coupon itself. If it's not attractive people won't click on it. If it's too complicated, the viewer will click to a different page. Remember KISS - Make it simple Stupid.
In short, coupons are great, but you must strategize to increase your chance prior to going ahead.
