In the present marketing environment, coupons have taken on a life of their own. Coupons are very prevalent, especially among younger consumers. One of the main reasons for this is that the availability of and convenience of couponing via mobile, the internet, in-store and via multiple access points.
BIGresearch established that 9 out of 10 consumers in the US use coupons. Based on the research, coupons influenced purchase decisions in most users, especially those in the 18 – 24 year bracket. Is couponing part of your recommended marketing strategy?
Advantages Of Using Coupons As a Marketing Strategy
There are several overwhelming reasons why marketing research companies and economic advisers recommend coupons as a viable marketing strategy. However, as with any other strategy, using coupons to market products has its ups and downs. Here are a few excellent reasons for including coupons as part of a company’s marketing strategy.
1.Coupons Can Be Used To Eliminate Excess Inventory
Coupons provide a wonderful opportunity to marketers to tie up new product marketing with tactics to eliminate inventory. For example, the promotion for a new product can be a coupon that offers 40 % – 50% off on an item sitting in inventory, if the consumer purchases the new product. This strategy can help businesses manage seasonal lows effectively. Consumers who are curious about a new product will feel justified in purchasing it for trial since they’re achieving significant savings with another product.
2.Coupons Can Be Used To Build Brand Awareness And Loyalty
Companies that promote their products and reward loyalty by using coupons enjoy enhanced branding, product awareness, and greater conversions. You may not overnight results, but will be able to appreciate the results over the long term.
3.Coupons Appeal To The Youth Demography
Younger consumers tend to access the internet a lot more than older ones. Many companies encourage or promote coupon use to grab the attention of the youth demographic. Young people also use the latest cell phones. They use mobile couponing apps to access, share and redeem coupons. The mobile couponing revolution alone represents a large percentage of total coupon redemption rates. The youth demographic can be trusted to take a campaign viral, which adds great value to your promotions.
Disadvantages Of Using Coupons As a Marketing Strategy
There are some disadvantages of using couponing as a marketing strategy. Here are a few main reasons:
1.Consumers Can Get Into Expectation Mode
One major downside of offering coupons is that customers form the expectancy mindset. They may not opt to buy your products if coupons are not associated with them. This habit, once formed, is hard to break and can greatly affect your brand positioning. You’ll never know if the sales are because your product is popular or your discounts are that good.
2.Coupon Campaigns Can Drain Resources
Companies that issue coupons need to devote considerable resources to manage large redemptions, follow up on campaigns and measure effectiveness. Paper coupons, TRX coupons, Ereleases coupons, internet coupons, e-coupons and printed coupons need to evaluated and reckoned with based on coupon codes. Many companies assign the task of sorting, compiling and totaling coupons to third party clearing houses. All this takes up considerable time and resource investment.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are reasons to both recommend and not recommend couponing as a marketing strategy. If you want to use coupons to promote your product or service, do so carefully. Study coupon-related websites that have been developed for affiliate commission purposes. Evaluate your present market reach and brand positioning. Determine if coupons are indeed key to your marketing strategy.
Article by Mark
This is a guest post by Mark who writes about discount deals at coupons blog where he regularly shares a trx coupon code and an ereleases coupon. In addition to information on TRX discount coupons and ereleases vouchers, Mark makes available promotional deals for other hot online products.
Mark has written 1 awesome articles for this blog.
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If you are selling content online, coupons can also help you create an affiliate system.
You can create different coupon codes for different affiliates, thus tracking their sales. This way, you know who to credit for a certain sale!
I use this strategy on some of my blogs.
I would think it would be the other way around – that the younger generation would avoid coupons and see them as cumbersome. But I see what you mean – their familiarity with technology ensures they have coupon apps, etc, and would be more likely to use them.
I have an blog site but had never thought of going for coupons for the products i advertise.
i have no idea of how important these coupons are for the people and good sales.Thank u for this post i will now make some useful research for getting proper coupon links for my site.
Instead of offering coupons I tend to go with time-sensitive offers. It works when you have a lot of regular visitors who KNOW the regular price of your stuff and are fast to jump on bundle discounts/etc.
Hi Mark,
Excellent points in both the pros and the cons. Coupons would definitely serve a specific purpose in your marketing plan. Thanks for sharing this interesting subject.
I have a widget that allows for the 4 125×125 ads in the sidebar. What ad service would you recommend for filling those, like you have on your site? Most profitable?
Coupons has two features, first is the idea or first commenter which is to track your sales, second, this idea helps convince a buyer as we people are always looking for some bit discount to a product we want to have.
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