“Remember, coupons are the only money you can print at home without the feds getting involved”
From e-commerce companies to brick and mortar stores, every business aims to augment its sales by attracting potential customers through incentives in the form of discount coupons, free shipping, sale offers, and the pricing strategies that grasp the attention of shoppers.
The Viability of Coupons
The discount coupons compel a shopper to stop and notice, this phenomenon also described as ‘zero moment of truth’ is essential to understand that customers must be provided with the brand message even before the purchase cycle commences. The sense of urgency that these coupons create is phenomenal because of the time slab that is implied for the sales with taglines like “hurry before it’s too late”. The fundamentals behind vouchers are like the concepts of Black Friday or Cyber Monday where consumers are lured into buying products that they may not even need at times, but a constructed need is created through perceptual marketing techniques which focus mainly on the after-discount prices or limited stock principles.
Inculcation of Coupons into Digital Landscape
With the surge of e-commerce sites, the discount coupons and vouchers are readily available through third-party platforms like Bogo or retailers have themselves introduced such incentives to expand sales volumes. Google AdSense is a platform that allows businesses to measure their returns on investment even when the search is done online while purchase is made offline (ROPO Principle). The coupons are acquired through various advertising sites while the conversion of those vouchers into material transactions is conducted at physical retail stores.
Digital Marketers find this methodology beneficial because it enables them to find the attribution rate (the last contact of
Attracting Customers
For attracting consumers, it is essential to first create a need by focusing the advertising on a problem that the proposed product is likely to solve. Let’s take a Nokia phone which is basically used as a medium of communication, but the value proposition advertised would encompass features like durability, affordability, and versatility. We have witnessed in recent times that due to the debacle of large Silicon-Valley companies, brands are focusing more on the idea of data protection, measures against security breaches, and other related problems of this technological age.
Once a need has been established, the next step is to hit the final nail in the coffin by massive percentage reductions in the prices that depict a major chunk of savings for the potential buyers. We have often seen that companies augment their prices initially and then provide discounts so that the amount of coupon does not hurt their lucrative gains.
Prices play an important role particularly the psychological strategies where a product is priced at $199 instead of $200. The subconscious mind fails to recognize the trivial one-dollar difference, but it stresses upon the price range being below $200 slab. Retailers often give coupons with the touch points of limited supply, so customers leave no stone unturned to benefit from the apparent “Clearance Sales”.
With the rise of smartphone apps and
While these discount coupons attract a high flow of customers to a business, it is imperative for sellers to focus on quality and customer relationship management because transforming a new customer is three times costlier than retaining an existing one. Businesses must have a strategy in place when devising plans for coupon distributions, existing customers must be lured for increasing the repeat purchase rate, while new customers must be targeted for consolidating the existing consumer base.
If discount coupons are repeatedly given, consumers might never purchase the brand’s offerings except when sales incentives are provided. On the other hand, if a brand fails to provide discounts while competitive businesses are resorting to such strategies then a major chunk of loyal customers might shift to alternate brands.