Is your business struggling to generate sales and trackable ROI from your social media campaigns? Well, while we can’t say exactly what your problem is without a deep dive into your analytics, we may have one solution for you to consider — a Social Media Coupon Campaign.
We understand if that’s a dirty word and you’re business is against discounting services/products, but we urge you to try them out.
Reasons Why You Should Set Up A Social Media Coupon:
- Tools like WooBox make them easy and trackable to get started
- You can save information like emails for anyone who signs up to receive their coupon
- A coupon on social is a great way to entice that social media lurker that isn’t quite ready yet to buy from you
- They’re amazing for rewarding current customers and pushing brand loyalty
And why a social media coupon and not the old cut and save method? Studies have found that customers would much rather have their coupons digitally right at their fingertips. In fact, this study from Invesp found that, “60% of consumers actually love receiving their coupons digitally and 50% are more likely to visit a store if they have received one. Additionally, it is estimated that 31 billion digital coupons will be redeemed worldwide in 2019 alone. Which is a significant increase from the 16 billion that were redeemed in 2014.”
The same study from Invesp found that businesses will greatly benefit from increased sales when using a social media coupon. “It has been found that 77% of consumers will spend $10-$50 more than anticipated when redeeming mobile coupons. Additionally, 68% of consumers believe coupons help create brand awareness and customer loyalty.”
So how can you achieve a win-win situation by giving your customers a great deal on your products and services while driving sales and creating a greater brand awareness? I’ve mapped out a number of tips that will help you gain the most exposure on your coupon campaign and help you capitalize on not only the current sale, but also make customers repeat buyers. Here are 3 tips to start with:
1. Use Geo-Targeted Ads
Let’s say you’re a local restaurant and you’re running a great coupon for $10 off. After preparing your social posts to announce the coupon campaign, you want to do your part to drive as much local traffic as possible.
So what do you do? You type up a quick post with the link to your coupon and publish it? If your brand generates great organic reach, this may be fine, but most businesses aren’t so lucky. There are strategies to ensure your post will receive more engagement and more importantly, more engagement from people in the target area who will actually go to your restaurant.
This can be done through geo-targeted ads. Geo-targeting is a tool used in order to market to a specific set amount of users based on their location. This is important because the more relevant an ad is to a user, the likelier they are to use it. By using this method of geo-targeting, you can target your ads and find customers by zip code, city, or country. This method can help attract new customers in the area, while also targeting your “regulars.”
You can get even more specific with demographics and select specific age ranges, gender and even household income. This will give up an idea of your potential reach and if it is too specific or too broad. Additionally, you can select everyone who lives in the area your targeting, who have recently been there or who have traveled there in the past.
2. Promoted Posts
Promoting a post, or also known as ‘boosting’, is another great way to drive traffic and get your content seen by more people. Also, keep in mind that you can and should also use geo-targeting when running a promoted post.
The benefits of promoting a post are similar to the targeted ads. You’re guaranteed more engagement than an organic post, you can set a specific target audience, and you have control over the cost of the ad, as well as the duration it runs for. This means you have full control over how much you spend on the ad and the exact window of time that it will run for. The more you spend on the ad and the longer it runs for, the more traffic you are going to get. Simple as that!
This level o
f control over your posts also makes for great analytics to see how your ad really worked. You are able to see the exact number of people you reached, link clicks, reactions, comments and shares.
A coupon is a great post to ‘boost’ because people will be attracted to the deal and you’ll find that you’ll receive shares, comments, and even more page “likes” because of it.
3. Generate an Email List for Future Sales
One of the great benefits of using a tool like WooBox is that you can capture email addresses for anyone who signs up to receive a coupon. While it’s true that some people will not come into your business and use their coupon, collecting their emails means you now have their information for any campaign in the future.
Depending on how you set up the coupon and which tool you use, you can set up your campaign to collect emails for anyone that clicks a generated link. This is the method that Bad Rhino employs with our clients.
Once you receive your emails from the campaign, you can then add these emails to a list in your email provider. If you send out weekly or monthly emails (and we recommend that you do!), then those who filled it out can now be included on the email chain. This will now keep your coupon users up to date on future promotions or updates about new products or items
We also suggest sending emails out before your promotion runs out to anyone who has claimed a coupon. Many people who have claimed your coupon may forget or just may be too busy to come in. Sending them emails before their coupon expires will increase the likelihood that they will come in to use it.
Are you a restaurant or small business owner? Have you tried using a social media coupon previously? What has worked? What hasn’t? Comment below and let us know!
