5 Coupon Code Marketing Tips

Offering coupon codes or digital coupons is a good way to entice consumers to make a purchase at your online store. Coupon codes are the Internet version of a discount or savings coupon that a consumer can redeem at the time of check-out by entering a series of letters or numbers in the coupon or promotional code box on your shopping cart page. Many consumers today actively seek out coupons online to lower their overall shopping costs.

3 Tips to Manage Your Coupon Code Promotion

To keep your coupon code campaign on track from a business perspective we recommend that you first set a budget, then choose a coupon type and decide on a minimum redemption requirement to profit from this type of small business marketing campaign.

Set a Campaign Budget

It's important for a small ecommerce business to set a budget for a coupon campaign and then stick to it.  Even though you are offering a discount to customers, the overall goal is to earn money; exceeding your campaign budget will quickly eat up your profits.  Be sure to determine the value of the total campaign ahead of time -- for example $10,000 total in discounts -- or set a maximum number of redemptions.

Determine the Offer Type

The biggest question small business ecommerce site owners ask is “What do I offer?”  If you have plenty of stock you could make your coupon product-specific, but that limits the number of consumers who would be interested in making the purchase. Similar coupons may offer a smaller item for free with an order.

To reach more consumers you can also choose to offer a dollar or percentage-off a total order. For this type of coupon, merchants tend to offer $5 or $10 off orders less than $100, but switch to percentage discounts (like 10 to 15% discount) on orders that are more than $100.

Set a Minimum Coupon Redemption Requirement

When offering a discount coupon code to customers, remember to take into account your current order value and stay above that to earn money. For example if the average order on your site is $50 then you would want to increase the minimum redemption value to boost overall profits. In this case, a $10 off any $60 or more purchase would be a good coupon to use for your site.

2 Tips to Promote Your Coupon Codes for Free

Coupon codes will help bring in new customers, but you can also promote coupons to existing customers to refresh their interest in your site and brand. For small business owners looking to offer coupon code marketing on a tight budget, you can invest a little time -- instead of money -- to help spread the word about your promotion online.

 Use Email Marketing and Blogs to Spread the Word

If you offer a coupon code, be sure to include details in your email newsletters to current subscribers. You can also post details of the coupon code on your business blog or add details to your website to announce a special deal for “new sign-ups.”  Different call-to-action pitches placed in different online communication channels will help your promotion reach more consumers. You can also Google “coupon sites” and send a notice out to some of the popular sites that advertise coupon codes.

Announce the Deal on Twitter

You can also use Twitter to spread the word about your coupon promotion -- for free. If you have a twitter account, your current followers will see the message, but many Twitter users who like shopping and good deals are apt to pick up your message and tweet it out as well.  For a little extra help on twitter you can also use the twtQpon (Twitter Coupon) service to create special reward coupons for Twitter.

Customers who click the link you create using the service are directed to an image-enabled version of the coupon page (on twtQpon.com) and are then redirected to the URL you specified when they click to redeem. 

More Small Business Marketing Tips

Looking to get a better handle on your small business marketing plan? Try these tips and guides for small business ecommerce sites:

How to Add Facebook Like to Your Ecommerce Site Twitter, Facebook Influence Google Real-Time Search Top 3 Email Marketing Tips5 Tips for Writing an Ecommerce Landing PageEMarketing Tips: Reformat Your Products Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG .

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