Coupon Marketing Strategy: How to Get Started

Every email marketer should have a coupon marketing strategy. It’s an easy and effective way to increase your customer engagement and sales. 

How can you do this, you might ask? Offer specific discounts to different customer segments. Then, start tracking and analyzing the effectiveness of your coupon codes.

In this article, we will go over what a coupon marketing strategy is, its benefits, and what you need to do to execute it.

What is a Coupon Marketing Strategy?

You might be asking yourself, “How do coupons attract customers? I mean, it’s 2023, aren’t people over coupons these days?”

Turns out, they’re not.

80% of Internet consumers report that they only sign up for emails to get discounts.

So, if you want to make more money from your emails, you need to create a coupon marketing strategy.

But what is coupon marketing to begin with?

Coupon marketing relies on discount or deal coupons to:

• Attract new customers.

• Retain current ones.

• Make them try new products.

Now, the next obvious question is, “Are coupons a good marketing strategy?”

The problem with coupon marketing is in its execution.

A lot of marketers keep offering discounts online, cheapening their brands without having a concrete strategy in place. 

A solid coupon marketing strategy takes into account:

• The target audience.

• The kind of coupon deals or discounts that would be most appealing to the market.

• How to launch offers that grab your customers’ attention without cheapening the brand.

The best thing about coupon marketing is that you can easily track its results. You can send your customers emails with their special coupon codes and pretty quickly see their results.

By sending and testing different coupon offers, you can get sophisticated data that shows you what interests your customers and how often they redeem your coupons. 

These results should inform your long-term marketing strategy and help you build a stronger relationship over time.

Benefits of Coupon Marketing Strategy

Coupon marketing comes with a ton of benefits, such as:

1. Increased bottom line
   38% of online customers spend more money if they get a coupon that gives them a deal.

2. New customers
   Offering coupons to prospects who are on the fence about buying your product could turn them into customers.
   For example, Adam Crookes, an SEO professional who took a niche site from 0 to 182k monthly organic visitors, uses discounts and coupons to get new customers.

3. Boosted customer loyalty
   You can use your coupon program to reward your loyal customers with additional discounts and offers. Nothing says “Thank You!” like a discount.

4. Clean inventory
   Nothing destroys margins like having an overstocked inventory, but there’s a solution… Offer discounts for your products to clean up your storage space.

5. More customer data
   Digital coupons are an excellent way to gather more valuable data. You can track their redemption rates and customer responses to tailor your offers. 

6. Boosted marketing channels
   You can use coupons to complement and boost your marketing efforts. The marketing channels that have the best synergy with coupon marketing are social media and email marketing. 

Types of Coupon Marketing

Coupon marketing is more than just offering a discount code.

Here are the different types of coupon marketing you can take advantage of:

1. A percentage discount
   These are the most common ones, and they’re everywhere.
   Why? Because they work. 

   Offering a percentage off the regular price is an awesome incentive to attract new customers.
   Jennifer from Level Up offered 10% off on her courses, and that helped her monetize.

2. Coupon sales promotion
   What is a coupon sales promotion?
   Instead of offering a percentage discount, you offer a dollar discount on the purchase to get more customers.

3. Buy one, get one for free
   This is an excellent offer if you want your customers to try new products or you have some inventory to clean. 

4. Free shipping
   If an order goes over a certain amount, you can offer a free shipping coupon. That way, you increase your customers’ spend.

5. Free gift
   Who doesn’t love free gifts? They are an excellent way to increase the perceived value of your product.

6. Time-sensitive
   Around the Holidays, we will be bombarded with these coupons that create a sense of urgency. You can use them for every occasion - Christmas, New Year, Valentine’s Day, and Cyber Monday.

7. Loyalty
   Giving your most loyal customers exclusive coupons makes them feel even more special. With your newsletter, this could mean that you offer discounts to loyal subscribers.

Implementing a Successful Coupon Marketing Strategy

Now that you get the benefits and the different types of coupon marketing, it’s time to talk about implementation.

If you want to be your average marketer, you can toss a discount code on your latest product and just go from there.

But to implement a successful coupon marketing strategy that aligns with your goals, values, and customers’ needs, you need to:

Understand your audience

Being obsessed with your customers is THE superpower to have in business. Just ask Jeff Bezos. He became the richest man alive by building Amazon around its customers’ needs.

So ask yourself - who is your customer? What do they like? What kind of offers/deals and discounts would catch their attention?

You can’t have a successful coupon marketing strategy without understanding your customers.

Be clear on your goals

What is the goal of your coupon marketing strategy? Is it focused on increasing your sales, retaining customers, or boosting brand loyalty? Does the strategy align with your brand’s overarching goals and objectives?

Answering these questions will help you create clear goals for your coupon marketing strategy, which would then help you…

Create eye-catching offers

An excellent coupon marketing strategy is one that aligns well with your brand. If your appeal is exclusivity, you can’t use discount coupons - you’ll ruin your brand. You don’t see Porche offering discounts on their cars, so make sure your offer is aligned with your brand message. 

Add them as part of your email marketing

Coupons and email are like bread and butter - they just go well together. So make sure everyone who wants to get a coupon signs up for your email list. It’s a great way to nurture that relationship long-term.

Measure your results and adjust accordingly 

After you start using coupons, start measuring the results.

Use different tools to see how well they engage your audience and boost your sales. beehiiv’s analytics will help you see the open rates, CTRs, and sales on your promotional emails. 

Based on the performance, adjust your approach so you can meet your goals.

Examples of Successful Coupon Marketing Strategies

To give you some inspiration for your own coupon marketing strategy, here are a few examples of well-executed coupon marketing strategies:

1. Amazon’s Prime Day

Amazon is the king of coupon marketing. 

On Prime Day, all Prime subscribers get massive discounts on a ton of products. 

This helps Amazon in two ways:

• It encourages current members to engage with the brand and influences them to purchase more products.

• It attracts new members.

2. Starbucks’ Happy Hour

Starbucks (and most restaurants) constantly run “Happy Hour” discounts on food and beverages at specific hours. This increases traffic and sales during times that they would generally be slower.

Why Trust Me? Tanyo runs an email marketing agency that helps financial companies get higher engagement and make more sales from their emails. He also writes a weekly newsletter on beehiiv.

3. Old Navy’s Super Cash

Old Navy offers their customers “Super Cash” coupons. 

With these coupons, customers earn credits for spending a certain amount of money.

This offer encourages people to spend more in the store and to return to claim their credits.

Tools for Coupon Marketing Strategy

To run any coupon marketing strategy, you need the right tools at your disposal to boost your efforts.

Here are the only tools you need for your coupon marketing:

1. beehiiv

You can’t effectively do coupon marketing without integrating your email list. 

beehiiv is the right platform for you because it gives you premier analytics that help you track your customer engagement through important metrics.

2. Shopify

If you’re running an e-commerce business, Shopify’s discount code feature is a must-use tool that helps you create, manage, and track your discount codes.

3. Coupon Carrier 

If you want to create and distribute coupons that you’ll use only one time, Coupon Carrier is a great tool to automate that process.

Measuring the Effectiveness of a Coupon Marketing Strategy

Now that you’re equipped with the right tools, it’s time to measure the effectiveness of your coupon marketing strategy.

Here are the key metrics you have to focus on:

Redemption rate

This metric will show you the percentage of coupons that your audience has actually used.

If you get a high redemption rate, you have a killer offer.

Sales

You need to be tracking your sales before, during, and after you run your coupon marketing campaign to see how it impacts your sales and retention.

Customer acquisition

This metric will help you see how many people you turned into customers using coupons.

Retention

Retention helps you measure how many repeat customers you have.

Average Order Value (AOV)

A good coupon campaign helps you increase your AOV. Offering free shipping for an order above a certain price is a great way to do that.

Conversion rate

This will tell you how many of your website visitors you have turned into customers.

Future of Coupon Marketing Strategy

In the past 12 months, there have been a ton of changes to the digital marketing landscape. 

Coupon marketing won’t be unaffected.

We see a few major changes happening.

Great coupon marketing relies on personalization.

With the rise of AI, you can create ultra-personalized coupons tailored to specific segments of your audience, product preferences, and purchase history.

Another huge focus will be having a mobile-first approach. 

In 2022, over 90% of Americans got their coupons via their mobile phones. 

These numbers will only rise, given that more and more mobile wallets are being integrated (Google and Apple Pay.)

The rise of mobile and AI means another awesome thing is coming - better analytics. 

You can see that tools like beehiiv will only get better at tracking emails and their effectiveness.

Conclusion: Best Coupon Marketing Strategy

The best coupon marketing strategy is the one that aligns with your audience and brand. It should be focused on personalization, integrate well with your overall marketing strategy, and align with your brand values.

But a great coupon marketing strategy starts with your email list.

Sign up for beehiiv to build your list and launch your next coupon marketing strategy.