Many businesses incorporate discounts into their online marketing campaigns. Some of these discounts are posted on their website and automatically incorporated into orders, while others are posted on social media sites or blogs and require the user to enter a discount code at check out. Doing online discounts may sound like a great way to give customers both old and new a reason to shop on your site. However, these discounts do take some time to set up, and the return may not always be worth it.
Posting a discount on your website is fairly easy to do, and it also takes the least amount of work for your customers. These discounts can range from a temporary price cut on certain items to a flat percentage off of the total or free shipping. Usually, your online shopping cart system automatically factors in the discount, so your users don’t actually have to do anything other than shop. Most shopping cart systems can be programmed for discounts fairly easily, too, so there’s not a whole lot of work on your end. These discounts are given to all customers.
The second type of discount is a little more work and a little more risk, but it definitely has its uses. With social media, many companies have started posting discount codes and coupon codes for their followers as a way of enticing more people to follow/like them. Sometimes this is a one-time thing (“like our Facebook profile for 10% off”), but some businesses regularly post discount codes for their followers. This way, you guarantee to keep those followers rather than see them use the initial code and then unfollow you.
These periodic discount codes do take a little more work. You have to create a unique code for your customers to enter on your website, which means you need a shopping cart system that will accept discount codes. You also have to know how to set these codes up so that they expire on time (you don’t want them to last forever). In some cases, you might a discount to apply to only certain items, which adds another layer of complexity.
So why do these discounts? Again, they give people a reason to follow you on Facebook or Twitter. You can also put discounts like this in your email newsletters. Because customers have to enter a discount code, you can use them as a type of reward for your loyal customers. “Since you’ve shopped with us before, we’re giving you £10 off this week.” These types of discounts make customers feel valued. While it may not be a way of growing your customer base, it is a way of getting previous customers to give you repeat business.
The other big downside to discount codes on social media is that if you don’t have a large number of followers, you may not get that much business from it. If only 20% of your followers use the code, and you only have 100 followers, those 20 people who shopped on your site may not spend enough to really make it worth your time.
Articles and posts written on the ImpliWeb official company blog represent those of the author and not those of ImpliWeb Limited.
