Digital Coupon Marketing in eCommerce is a simple yet effective way to boost online sales and build customer loyalty. By offering discount coupons via eCommerce discount campaigns, store owners attract new customers, encourage repeat purchases, get sales growth along with many more benefits.
Coupon marketing involves making your brand known to customers by offering discounts. If you own a store in WooCommerce or any other eCommerce store, this guide will be of great help. Here, you can find all the possible ways on how to do digital coupon marketing to drive growth and customer engagement.
Increase your WooCommerce store sales by creating and providing discount coupons using the Discount Rules for WooCommerce – PRO.
Benefits of Digital Coupon Marketing
Some of the benefits that you can get by marketing your digital coupons and providing online deals are listed below.
- Digital coupons incentivize customers to make purchases which leads to increased sales volume and your store’s average order value.
- Coupon rewards and special offers make your customers feel valued and encourage them to make repeated purchases. This, in turn, increases loyalty and long-term engagement.
- Digital coupon marketing and price reductions have the potential to acquire new customers, especially when used in targeted campaigns or referral marketing.
- Digital marketing of coupons has the potential to boost brand awareness as customers share coupon codes with friends, and social media or do word-of-mouth digital voucher promotions.
Note! While marketing, make sure you are abiding by all the legal considerations for online coupon promotions.
Types of Digital Coupons
In eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, store owners can create WooCommerce coupons of different types and incentivize customer purchases. Here are some coupon types that you’ll encounter in WooCommerce and similar other eCommerce sites.
- Percentage Discount Coupons: These digital coupons offer discounts as a percentage of the total order value.
- Fixed-Cart Discount Coupons: These coupons offer a fixed discount on the total cart amount. For example, these coupons come with “$10 off your purchase”.
- Fixed-Product Discount Coupons: These coupons provide a fixed discount on specific products that are in the cart.
- Free Shipping Coupons: Provides free shipping to the customer when applied at the checkout. These coupons are mostly provided for a minimum spend amount.
- Customer-specific coupons: These coupons are provided for specific customers or customer groups such as long-term customers or new subscribers.
In addition to that, you can also find several coupons like usage-restricted coupons, cart condition-based coupons, automatic coupons, product-specific coupons, referral coupons, bundle discount coupons, seasonal or holiday coupons, gift coupons, etc.
Steps to Create an Effective Digital Coupon Marketing Campaign
Following are the steps to design a digital coupon marketing campaign yourself. This involves creating coupon codes and choosing a marketing channel to promote the coupons based on your intended purpose.
Step 1: Set a Goal for your Digital Coupon Marketing Campaign
The first step in digital coupon marketing is to find the main purpose of providing coupon discounts to your customers. If your purpose aligns with any of the reasons listed below, follow it to strategize your digital coupon marketing campaign.
a) Attract New Customers
If you aim to attract first-time buyers and bring in new customers to your ecommerce store, you need to offer appealing discount coupons and deals such as a free product coupon that can encourage new buyers. Some of the digital coupon marketing techniques you can try are,
- Sign-Up Discount Coupons: You can create coupons with effective promotional offers and codes and offer special discounts to new customers who sign up for your newsletter or create an account in your ecommerce store. Add a sign-up form to your site’s home page, product page, or as a pop-up to capture new visitor details and promote sign-up digital coupons.
- Welcome Discount Coupons: To boost initial conversion and introduce new customers to your store, store owners can create a discount coupon code like “WELCOME10” or any other coupon code examples and offer a specific discount amount or percentage off to it.
The main difference between sign-up and welcome discounts in discount campaign is that the former focuses more on building an email list or customer database and using it for lead generation while the latter is about converting first-time visitors into customers.
b) Build Customer Loyalty
To build a strong, loyal customer base that sees value in staying engaged with your ecommerce store, here are some of the digital coupon marketing strategies and customer retention techniques to do savings promotions.
- Insiders Discount: Create a sense of exclusivity for your loyal subscribers or high-spending customers by implementing insider discounts. These discounts go beyond regular rewards like special digital coupon that are only accessible to select customers. You need to do email segmentation and send these offers only to these customers.
- Customized Digital Coupon: This involves targeting customers with personalized coupons and coupon discounts to your customers on their birthdays or anniversaries. You can also collect their purchase history and provide discounts based on that.
- Loyalty Program Discounts: Loyalty programs are where customers earn points for each purchase they make and plugins like WPLoyalty help you create effective loyalty programs in your store. These points can be redeemed as digital coupons. You can create tiered loyalty levels that offer increasing benefits based on the level.
- Early Access Discounts: Here’s one of the highly effective coupon marketing strategies for ecommerce where you’ll let loyal customers access discount sales before anyone else. Send coupons with codes such as “EARLY30” or any other codes to your loyal customers.
Email segmentation is an integral part of creating loyalty programs and offering digital coupons through it. You can also use an ecommerce email marketing tool like Retainful to segment and target specific audiences for your digital coupon marketing campaigns and loyalty rewards.
c) Brand Promotion for Digital Coupon Marketing
Following are some of the digital coupon marketing ways to promote your brand and boost the visibility of your online store. Some of the ways to do this are given below.
- Referral Programs: Referral programs incentivize existing customers to your store in exchange for rewards. You can implement this digital coupon strategy by offering a $10 coupon discount to the referrer and the new customer when they make the first purchase. These referral programs broaden your brand’s visibility.
- Digital Coupons for Lead Generation: In this sales promotion method, store owners will nurture new customers with a series of welcome emails and SMS lists and make them loyal customers. Store owners need to create a lead generation campaign where new visitors to your store will receive exclusive digital coupons for signing up. In this way, you can generate leads and promote your brand constantly through them.
- Brand Giveaways to Generate Engagement: In this digital coupon marketing strategy, store owners will give away valuable prizes such as gift cards, product coupons, bundle discounts, etc. These giveaways require customers to provide contact information and also attract a wider audience to your store.
- Gamification: You can market digital coupons using gamification. By using games like Spin the Wheel, scratch and Win, holiday-themed games, etc, you can provide discount coupons and many other customer incentives for those who win thereby improving customer engagement and making the brand experience more interactive
d) Holiday Web Coupon Promotions
Store owners can strategize their digital coupon marketing campaigns around holidays, purchase seasons such as black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc, and promote their brand.
- Holiday-Specific Coupons: Make use of holidays and shopping seasons and create unique digital coupons such as BF2024 for Black Friday eCommerce sales or XMAS24 for Christmas. In this way, you can market your digital coupon and attract more traffic to your website.
- Daily or Weekly Flash Sales: Market your digital coupons daily or weekly via emails, social media, etc keep customers engaged and return to your site. Store owners can schedule coupons for a flash sale and use unique voucher codes for each day.
- Free-Shipping Coupons: Free shipping coupons appeal to customers who are sensitive to shipping costs. Store owners can leverage this to increase average order value by adding more items to qualify for free shipping. Advertise these coupons on the website and clearly state the minimum purchase required to qualify.
- Holiday Upsell & Cross-Sell: Holidays are a great chance to upsell products via digital coupon marketing. Displaying upsell and cross-sell offers on your website along with the discount coupons can encourage customers to make more purchases.
Besides the above, there are plenty of digital coupon marketing strategies such as reminding customers of their abandoned carts, promoting digital coupons in the name of holiday giveaways, or offering digital coupons via tiered discounts.
e) Clear Inventory
By providing incentives via digital coupon marketing, online store owners can drive immediate purchase interest for slow-moving items, thereby helping clear your store inventory. Some of the strategies include,
- Bundle Discounts: Product bundling involves tagging slow-moving items along with fast-moving items. You can set it up in such a way that customers purchasing any item that’s included in the bundle, will be informed of the discount coupons that can be availed when purchased as a whole.
- Cross-Sell: Here’s a digital coupon marketing strategy where you’ll offer products that are relevant to the one the customer intends to purchase. Store owners can offer these products in the form of coupons and as a “last minute” deal. In this, way customers will take note of your coupons, and encourage them to purchase the item.
- Exit-Intent Coupons: To convert hesitant customers into buyers right before they leave your store, you can use exit-intent pop-ups to offer discount coupons for slow-moving items in your inventory. In this way, you can give them a reason to purchase using these digital coupons.
Tip! This digital coupon marketing strategy becomes even more effective if promoted as limited time offers on your online store website.
Sell slow-moving items in your inventory by providing discount coupons to those products using the Discount Rules for WooCommerce – PRO.
f) Customer Retargeting for Digital Coupon Marketing
If you are looking to re-engage past visitors and convert them into loyal customers, the following are the online coupon marketing strategies to do it.
- Abandoned Cart Coupons: By sending automated email sequences to customers who left items in their carts without purchasing by informing them of the discount coupons that are available to them. Store owners can also set a time-limited discount within hours or days after cart abandonment.
- Personalized Retargeting Ads: This one’s a bit advanced where store owners use dynamic retargeting ads on social media platforms to showcase the products a customer has looked at previously along with the digital coupon.
- Event-Based Customer Retargeting: In this digital coupon marketing tactic, you’ll send coupons based on specific customer behaviors or events like birthdays, anniversaries, or first-time visitors. You can also add discounts to lead forms to capture customers while signing up on your website.
Step 2: Choose Your Digital Coupon Marketing Channel
Once you have decided on your online coupon marketing goal, you need to choose the right digital coupon marketing channel for promotion. Some of the customer distribution channels and digital marketing tools are listed below.
a) Leverage Social Media for Digital Coupon Marketing
Social media is a powerful channel for digital coupon marketing. According to Thrive agency, more than 71% of the US population use social media and this makes it an effective marketing channel to promote your discount coupons.
- Promote Coupons in Stories: You can share your digital coupon codes on your stories on Instagram or Facebook and create a sense of urgency and make the offer known to your customers.
- Use Paid Ads: Run targeted ad campaigns on social media platforms to promote your digital coupons to specific audience segments based on demographics, behaviors, etc. In this way, you can reach beyond organic followers. You can also use dynamic ads on social media to retarget users who have viewed specific products with personalized coupon offers.
marketing - Influencer Collab: Influencers endorsing your offers and digital coupons expose your brand to a new set of audiences. Partner up with influencers who align with your brand to share exclusive voucher codes and create social proof.
You can also use social media hashtags or use polls and customer engagement strategies for marketing digital coupons.
b) Partner Up With Top Coupon Sites for Digital Coupon Marketing
Partnering up with top coupon websites and coupon aggregators for sales promotions can significantly enhance your digital coupon marketing campaign by expanding its reach. Here’s how we do it.
- Identify Relevant Coupon Sites: First, research and shortlist all the coupon website that align with your target audience. Contact these internet coupon advertising teams via their contact form or any other channels to maximize reach.
- Negotiate Partnership Terms: Then, discuss terms including fees, commission structures, etc. For example, some coupon aggregators work on a performance-based model where you pay only when a digital coupon is redeemed while some other charge for placement and visibility.
- Provide Exclusive Coupons: Offer unique and high-value digital coupons that are only available through the coupon site. Such digital coupon marketing techniques can increase your listing’s appeal.
- Performance Monitoring: While looking for a coupon aggregator, look for a site that offers performance reports that ensure you have access to monitor results and adjust your digital coupon marketing campaigns accordingly. You can also set UTM parameters to measure the success of each site individually.
c) Email Electronic Discount Marketing
Email marketing ROI (return of investment) is about $36 for every $1 spent. Here’s how you use this profitable way to engage with customers directly and promote your cart discount codes.
- Set Automated Trigger Emails: You can set up automated emails that sends coupon discounts to customers based on specific actions like cart abandonment, browsing activity, purchase anniversaries, etc. Segmenting audiences for targeted coupon offers can increase redemption rates.
- Create Actionable CTAs: Use engaging subject lines and CTAs that highlight your digital coupon offer. You can also personalize the emails with the recipients name along with using prominent call-to-action buttons that lead directly to the coupon offers page.
- Test Subject Lines: You should test different subject lines, coupon discount values, and email designs to see which gets your higher click-through rates and resonates with your audience.
Besides these, you can offer newsletters that contain subscriber-only coupon codes and feature customer testimonials. Email marketing automation tools can also be included in your campaigns.
d) Push Notifications & SMS for Digital Coupon Marketing
Here’s an overview of how to set up push and SMS notifications for your digital coupon marketing campaigns.
- Set up Platform: First, sign up for an SMS marketing platform like Klavio or Twilio, which allows message automation and segmentation that integrates push notifications. Then, on your website or app, request push notifications at checkout. In this way, you can get the customer’s number to market your digital coupons.
- Segment Audience: Group users based on past purchases, cart abandonment, or browsing behavior and provide unique discount coupons. In this way, you can do targeted campaigns using push and SMS notifications.
- Schedule Campaigns: Set SMS reminders for soon-to-expire digital coupons and also trigger notifications based on behavior like cart abandonment, etc.
After completing the above setup, you need to monitor metrics like open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate and optimize them based on performance. You can also ensure all your SMS campaigns have an easy opt-out option to unsubscribe.
e) Sales Landing Page
In this marketing channel, you need to focus more on capturing the customer’s attention while visiting your website/ landing page and making it easier to claim offers.
- Clear Headlines: Use simple and clear headlines, and CTAs (call to action) that immediately grabs customer’s attention. Keep your landing page’s texts minimal and direct. You can also address common customer questions regarding coupon offers briefly using FAQs. Make sure your digital coupons are visually represented.
- Easy Redemption Instructions: Make sure the coupon redeeming procedure is very simple and provide an explanation to do so. Place buttons or links below the coupons that directly apply the coupon discount to the customer’s cart.
- Mobile Optimization: Not just PCs, your landing page should be fully responsive and navigable on mobile devices. Since more than 65% of ecommerce shopping is done via mobile devices, make sure your digital coupon marketing works flawlessly on these platforms.
Besides these, you can Live Chat or display banners, ribbons, footers, and pop-ups to inform customers of the discount coupons available to them.
f) Print Materials & Mass Media
This digital coupon strategy can effectively reach customers who prefer physical marketing services. This includes print materials like newspapers, printed coupon codes, or mass media like Television, Radio, etc.
All you need to do is to have an eye-catching coupon design and include a QR code for easy access. You can also use unique promo codes or QR codes for each digital coupon marketing campaign to measure effectiveness and optimize future strategies.
Choose a marketing channel that suits your budget and agenda to promote your digital coupons. You can also use a blend of distribution channels; to promote discount offers and make it known to a wider audience.
Step 3: Importance of Coupon Design in Digital Coupon Marketing
Creating visually appealing digital coupons makes it easy for customers to redeem and enhance your digital coupon marketing efforts. Here are some of the points to keep in mind while designing attractive digital coupon graphics for your online store.
- On your coupon codes use colors that match with your brand but stand out on the page and make sure the coupon color contrasts with the background color.
- Opt for a larger font to make the code easily scannable. Avoid overly decorative font that can make the code hard to read.
- Include branding elements like your store logo, or a tagline to reinforce brand identity on your digital coupons. Make sure these designs don’t overpower the coupon code.
- Coupon Codes have to be easily readable on smaller screens such as mobile devices, So, design a mobile-friendly layout that keeps the coupon code visible without scrolling.
By following these design tips, you can create visually appealing, functional digital coupons that catch the attention of the customers and enhance your digital marketing tactics.
Step 4: Track Coupon Success
The only way to find out if your digital coupon marketing campaign is working is by tracking its success. Some of the ways to measure the success of digital coupon campaigns are given below.
- Measure conversion rates for each digital coupon by dividing the number of coupon redemptions by the number of coupon views ie; from email opens, ad clicks, etc. In this way, you can identify which coupon channels have high potential.
- Monitor abandoned cart recovery by tracking how many carts are recovered using coupon codes. All you need to do is divide the number of redeemed abandoned cart coupons by total abandoned carts.
- Try tools that offer built-in tracking for discount codes by providing data related to coupon redemptions, revenue generated, and other key metrics.
By implementing these tracking methods, you can get a clear understanding of where your digital coupon marketing campaign lags, and will help you refine your marketing strategies.
Create cart discount coupons and recover abandoned carts using the Discount Rules for WooCommerce – PRO plugin.
Conclusion
Digital Coupon Marketing offers a versatile way to connect with your customers, drive sales, and build long-term relationships. It doesn’t matter what you are looking for, digital coupon marketing offers a lot of flexibility and value to the store owners.
By carrying out the right ecommerce promotions, online store owners can bring in new customers, boost revenue, and achieve customer satisfaction.
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Personalizing digital coupons using AI, mobile integration of digital coupons, implementation of blockchain for security, etc are some of the future trends in digital coupon marketing.