As a business owner, you must relish your successes but also be aware of the possibilities of failure.
One of the biggest challenges that any business will face is making more sales. As a result, entrepreneurs are always trying to find ways to improve their sales records.
One of the best ways is to offer business coupons. But many entrepreneurs hesitate to give out coupons as they worry it’ll cheapen their products and services.
Here’s why you should consider using business coupons:
Business Coupons Offer Quick Sales
Especially in the early days of your business, you have to find a way to make quick sales.
Chances are, you’ve put up a lot of capital just to register your business. You need to find a quick way to recover these costs. Selling your products and services as fast as possible is key.
But here’s the challenge: your business is the new kid on the block. You have to find a way to make it stand out from the crowd.
Why would we shop at your corner store when the supermarket offers so much more?
This is the mindset you’ll be confronted with as a small business owner. The fastest way to convince customers to shop at your business is to help them save money by offering business coupons.
You can use a service such as pgprint.com to print out high-quality business coupons to hand out to your local community.
Business Coupons Offer Incentives
Your business coupons don’t simply have to be discounts on your products or services. Rather, they can serve as a way to offer incentives and build relationships with your clients.
For example, your coupon can give a discount on one product. The extra savings will give your customer a chance to buy another product. Or you can create a coupon for one specific service that also grants a loyalty membership.
Coupons also allow your customers to test a product or service. You won’t mind spending $2 on a pasta sauce you’ve never tried before. But if that pasta sauce costs $10, you’d hate to waste so much money in case you don’t like it.
The discounts that coupons bring let your customers try out your products and services. It’ll give them the assurance that it’s not a major risk to try something new. It’s also great to collect feedback so you can improve what you offer.
Don’t hesitate to offer business coupons. While you might make less money in the short run, you’ll potentially earn a lot more in the long run.
Business Coupons Aren’t All About Discounts
Often, we think that the sole reasons to give out business coupons are to give discounts. But you can give or even sell coupons to offer other features.
For example, let’s say you run a hotel. You might offer a business coupon if your guests opt to stay in a premium room rather than a standard room. You might offer them a coupon to get a free breakfast if they pay for the more expensive premium room.
Business coupons can be vouchers for exclusive products, services, or experiences. This is a great way to convince your customers to pay more. They’ll be willing to get the premium room if it means that breakfast comes free.
Think about the different offers you can give your customers from your business coupons. The more variety you offer, the greater the advantages of business coupons will be for your company.
Now let’s look a bit deeper into how to offer business coupons and create the best deals for them.
Plan Your Business Coupons Strategy
Before you send out business coupons, you have to make a plan on how you’ll distribute them.
For example, do you want to go via the physical marketing route? You can print out business coupons and hand them out. This is the strategy used in direct mail campaigns, which are often successful.
You can also send business coupons digitally. With this approach, you can ask your customers to sign up for an email newsletter. You can share these digital business coupons solely through this email newsletter.
Next, you want to consider your main focus for giving coupons. Do you want to make quick sales? Or do you want to offer vouchers for exclusive deals?
You can offer as much variety as you wish when it comes to business coupons. However, in the beginning, try to focus on offering one type of business coupon. Test out what works best for your customers.
Some customers might only want business coupons to receive discounts for your products and services. Others will want a business coupon to get an extra feature or amenity for free.
Likewise, you may want to consider how often you wish to distribute your business coupons. Are these coupons only for sharing during long weekends and holidays?
This is a fine line to walk. For some businesses, they get continuous sales due to their discounts.
For others, discounts cause them to take a loss because customers never want to pay more and feel a sense of entitlement when it comes to coupons! Take your time to decide what strategy works best for you.
The Risks of Business Coupons
While we advocate for you to use business coupons, you must also know the risks. The risks aren’t there to deter you. Rather, you should understand them to help you plan your business marketing strategy with coupons.
As we alluded to in the previous section, discount offers can sometimes “spoil” your clients. They might always expect a discount and won’t make a purchase without it.
As a result, many companies don’t offer discounts at all. Sometimes this can work. You wouldn’t expect Rolex or Bugatti to give a discount for their products. But even well-known brands like Victoria’s Secret or Zara give regular discounts.
The main way for a business to survive is to ensure that you have consistent cash flow. Often, too many discounts can mean that you earn less than you spend.
Make sure you have a good idea of your average expenses total per month. Only after you have figured out this number should you consider offering generous discounts.
Often, business coupons have a long period of validity. There might even be times when business coupons don’t have expiration dates at all.
You have to predict that your business will hit a rough patch in the future. During that time, it’ll be a real inconvenience if you’re bombarded with discount coupons!
But at the same time, customers will get frustrated if they receive a business coupon on a Monday that expires on Friday. This will give them the impression that you’re trying to squeeze every cent out of them. This might cause you to lose otherwise loyal customers.
There’s no right or wrong approach. Rather, you have to look at the different tradeoffs when analyzing risk. Decide what’s the best approach for your company. After all, business is about experimenting, and business always finds a way.
One of the Best Marketing Tips Is: Offer Business Coupons
You might not have thought about it, but offering business coupons is one of the best ways to market your brand.
Let’s say you’re scrolling through your Instagram feed. You might come across a few Instagram ads for various companies. Most likely, you’ll keep scrolling, and you’ll ignore these ads.
But what happens if one of these ads offers a coupon? You’ll immediately stop and see what the coupon offers. If the brand is selling you something you’ll need, you’ll click on it.
Business coupons have often been used to help promote a company or even build a brand. You know about Brandsmart because of every business coupon they offer. It seems everything they sell is discounted at $X.88! The 88 cents has almost become their trademark.
Likewise, Subway would charge $5 for a footlong sub! A delicious sub for only $5? What more could you want?
You see examples of how business coupons help market a company. In many cases, we know about the brand because of the coupons that they offer.
Consider taking the same approach when you use business coupons. You can use them not just for sales but for building an entire brand!
How to Promote Your Business Coupons
Now let’s look at some of the methods to promote your business coupons.
One of the best ways is to use social media platforms. As mentioned in the previous example, Instagram ads are often the best place to promote your business coupons.
Use your different social media platforms to promote your business coupons and offer value to your customers. For example, use Instagram to share discount codes.
Use Twitter to give away free content such as an ebook or video tutorial. Ask your followers to retweet your content if they wish to receive your content.
As mentioned before, you can also promote your business coupons via an email newsletter. You can also give business coupons only to existing customers. If you want to play it safe, only give coupons to customers who have been loyal for several months.
You want to ensure that your customers patronize your business even when a discount isn’t available. Have an abundance of business coupons at bay, but don’t always distribute them all at once.
Create a Win-Win Situation
When you offer a discount, you have to find a way to create a win-win situation for both you and the customer.
For example, a business traveler doesn’t need to stay in one hotel room and get the second one for free! Rather, he or she would prefer a discount on one hotel room.
Likewise, if one person is ordering a pizza, it’s better to give them a discount on one pizza. If it’s an organization ordering a pizza, consider giving them a bulk discount or offering a ‘Buy X, get Y for free!’ deal.
You have to not try to jump on every trend that your competitor offers. Take time to decide what’s the best strategy for your business. You should also always offer cash back when possible.
Let’s face it, we get annoyed when we get Uber credits. We’d rather just get a direct refund. Uber and Lyft are the only major ridesharing apps so they can get away with it. If there are 10 different ridesharing options, one can expect this to change.
Best Practices for Designing Business Coupons
Now let’s end this guide with the best practices you should consider when offering business coupons.
Make sure your business coupons specify what products or services they work for. For example, Victoria’s Secret has separate coupons for bras and panties. Another company might offer a general discount for any product.
Others might offer 10% off with any purchase that has a subtotal of $100. Just make sure that any applicable clauses are specified on the coupon. For example, you might state “10% off most products*” and then include a footnote with the asterisk(*) that specifies any ineligible products.
If your business coupons have expiration dates, make sure these are legible and large. If they’re too small, you can expect customers to complain that they didn’t see the expiration date. While they might be in the wrong, the “customer is always right” mentality might prevail.
Use as few words as possible on your business coupon. Your message has to be succinct. A cursory glance should be enough for your customer to understand what deal they’ll receive.
Make sure you also include your website URL and social media profile handles on the business coupons. Include a customer service number and/or email address as well.
Improve Your Sales
Now you know how business coupons can help drive sales for your business and build your brand.
As a startup, business coupons are great for making fast cash. If you’re fiscally responsible, you’ll get to maintain a steady cash flow even when you offer generous discounts.
There are many offers you can give via business coupons. These can range from an instant discount to a voucher for upgraded products and services. Use our best practices to design your business coupons.
Here’s a final piece of advice: if you need even more great marketing tips, you’ll find them on our blog!