TIPS TO EFFECTIVELY LAUNCH A DIGITAL COUPON CAMPAIGN

Welcome to the digital millenium. Gone are the days where business coupons are limited to cutouts and in-store flyer prints. We’ve now arrived at a technological shape-shifter. An era by which the smart phone dominates the lives of the average consumer.

In today’s marketing climate, small businesses are in a position to offer customers digital coupon systems in order to generate better lead generation and encourage brand loyalty. By becoming an early adopter of this revolutionary marketing process, you’ll not only offer your valuable customers a way to save money, but will propel your business into a position of supremicy and competitive advantage. To effectively implement this strategy in your business environment, here’s a few tips and hints to ensure that your customers are fully engaged with the new campaign:

Use E-Mail as an integration tool 

E-Mail marketing, albeit slowly fading to a lesser effective advertising tool, still plays a vital role in data collection and in providing customers with the right information they need at the right time they need it. By building a solid database of customers and leads and regularly updating them on specials and discounts, including the digital delivery of online coupons, you’ll ensure each of your customers gains direct access and exposure to all marketing efforts. By providing digital coupons via E-Mail, customers can present the coupon via their smart phone at a purchase point, avoiding the bother invloved in cutting out and carrying physical coupons.

Be visually enticing

Digital coupons give your business the opportunity to show off its creative side. Be engaging, eye-catching and vivid and include content (images, text etc) that captures your audiences appeal and attention. If possible, invest in a graphic designer to ensure that your material is presented as professional as possible.

Target your consumers through GPS technology

Thanks to geo-targeting, or GPS location technology built into every smart phone on the planet, a small businesses mobile app can be used as direct sales person when a potential lead approaches a specificed perimiter nearby a business location. Push notifications can be set to send coupons directly to consumers who have your application loaded on their device, thus prompting an incentive for them to take advantage of your call-to-action. But be careful to limit this, as this method can often become intrusive when overused on an individual customer.

SMS! SMS! SMS! 

Small business can put together an SMS campaign to promote their new coupons. By prompting customers to SMS an ‘unlock code’ to a particular phone number, a business can collect a list of phone numbers of potential leads and customers in order to facilitate future marketing efforts to. Your customers get a coupon for a free purchase (or whatever you like!), and you get an opportunity to build your collective database. However, be sure to alert those customers who’s numbers have been collected, that they may opt out of your service at any time by replying to a marketing SMS with the word ‘STOP.’ This is important to note under the Australian Spam Act.

Encourage social sharing

It’s a fact that consumers trust reviews from online friends they either know personally, or have met via social networking. Your digital coupons should come with a social media ‘share’ button – a call-to-action, prompting those engaged with the coupon to pass that marketing message on to their friends and followers. If your offer is attractive, the odds are in your favour of increasing your potential customer reach through social share techniques. To increase your chances of this occuring, provide incentive-based rewards for loyal customers who can turn referrals into customers for your business. If a customer is rewarded for generating you new business, they’ll be more inclined to continue this approach moving forward.

And there you have it! Everything you need to know, in order to be effective when you launch your digital coupon campaign. So what are you waiting for? An ImagiWorker, perhaps? 😉