It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Decorations and cozy sweaters mark the start of the holiday season, and more importantly, the biggest time of year for brands and retailers. Every December, stores and E-Commerce platforms are flooded with consumers looking to buy that perfect gift.
According to a 2014 survey from the Census Bureau’s Monthly Retail Trade Report, 86% of adults planned to buy holiday gifts for friends and family. In the same survey, the Monthly Retail Trade Report revealed that retail sales in December 2013 totaled a whopping $437.1 billion.
With such a saturated retail market, it can be difficult to drive consumers to purchase your product over competing brands. An ideal way to acquire new customers while engaging current ones is through a holiday promotional offer.
Product samples and coupons are a great way to push new and recurring consumers closer to purchase. But what if you could get these coupons into the hands of your consumer before they even leave the house? Digital coupons are easily integratable into your holiday strategy and can help your brand beat out the competition so you get the most out of this shopping season.
Here are 4 reasons why you should include digital coupons in your holiday marketing strategy:
1. More Targeted
Print coupons and direct mail are a go-to marketing strategy for many brands, but these traditional methods come with many challenges as well. It’s difficult to target specific audiences using these methods, leaving marketers with the inability to tailor the experience. Digital coupons allow for brands and retailers to tap into deep demographic information and target a very specific audience with pinpoint precision. It’s also incredibly important to be reaching your consumers at exactly the right moment. With smartphones and tablets in every home, it’s easier than ever to reach your audience at any second. According to mobileSQUARED, 90% of SMS recipients read their text messages within three minutes. Digital coupons work in real time, allowing you to start the conversation with customers in a more targeted and personalized way.
2. More Measurable
Traditional sampling methods make it difficult to measure the ROI on a campaign. What happens once they’ve walked away with the sample or coupon? Who are they and do they actually redeem it? By moving your efforts to the digital realm, many of these questions can be answered thanks to the deep reaching data found online. Product sampling companies today are far more tech-savvy than in the past, and can help you create a measurable online strategy that gives you real-time analytics. Digital coupons and social media sampling strategies allow you to not only track who’s clicked on your offer but also their contact information, so you can continue the conversation past trial.
3. Social
When you make the decision to use a digital coupon strategy, a social component is immediately part of the equation. By opting for a social media sampling strategy, it encourages fans to share the deal with friends and family, increasing the potential virality of your offering. According to Knowledge Networks, Digital coupons attract more new buyers than print coupons by a margin of 35%. Get the most out of your digital coupons by advertising your campaign across all social media channels. A great way to generate conversation is to create a campaign hashtag to follow fan interaction, and encourage fans to post an image of the product they purchased using the digital coupon.
4. Cost-Effective
Aside from giving more targeted and measurable results, digital coupon strategies can also be easier on the bank account than costly traditional sampling and couponing methods. With no printing, shipping or advertising costs, taking a digital approach is a great way to drive in-store traffic and get real results while cutting marketing costs. Huffington Post states, as tech advances lower prices, the manufacturers and retailer can cut costs, and thereby offer greater discounts, which in turn, drive more coupons. Your money is valuable “invest in a digital coupon strategy that can actually help to increase your ROI.
To see real results from digital coupon strategies, see our Case Studies page.
