Marketing tactics are hot and cold as time passes, but no matter what business or industry, one thing remains consistent: Customers love to save money, and free is still the best word in marketing. Thanks to a growing number of Americans online (more than 70% of the population), consumers are utilizing online coupons as a quick and easy alternative to spending hours clipping them from the newspaper (If they even ever did it before).

According to Simmons/Experian Research and Coupons Inc., (AllBusiness.com2009) since 2005, online coupon usage has grown 39 percent. Businesses are capitalizing on the multitude of ways that online coupons can be used to reach customers – emails with printable coupons, banner ads with discount codes, e-newsletters with promotional codes, and even mobile ads that allow marketers to target customers via text messages.

Crafty online marketers, like BzzAgent.com, have even figured out how to make us do the work, by offering online discounts and freebies as a trade for consumers to voluntarily participate in word of mouth campaigns. We love free stuff.

With the growing number of opportunities and methods to reach customers, it’s not a surprise that online coupons are gaining momentum. Here are a couple of ways to use online coupons to rev up sales and reward your loyal customer base.

Increase Sales
Online coupons do more than just attract clearance shoppers. They can also be used to increase average transaction values. For example, discounted shipping for orders over $50.00, two for $40.00 when just one is $22.95, a free gift for orders over $100.00 etc. These offers encourage customers to spend more per order than they normally would. Emails with a printable coupon for 20% off for friends and family can generate business outside of the normal customer inventory, as the email is quickly forwarded to everyone in your customers’ address books.

Entice Shoppers to Not Abandon Their Carts
Online shoppers abandon their shopping carts before checking out for any list of reasons. Finding out when and why they abandon them is crucial. Winning them back with a discount is even more important. For example, many companies do not list their shipping prices until after the shopper clicks to check out. The behavior this elicits is obvious. Customers click to check out, see the shipping price and abandon their shopping cart because shipping is too high. (Shipping is where a lot of discount marketers make their money back)

Net-Results Marketing Automation can be used to determine at what point those shoppers are abandoning their shopping carts. This information can be used as an opportunity to automatically send them an email based on their behavior. This gives a company the leverage to win that customer back, by, for this example, giving them shipping for $1.00.

Create Continuity
In a crowded market place, it’s critical to create strong customer relationships. Communicating to your customers that you care about what they want, and not just the revenue stream they bring in, is crucial to keep them coming back. Companies like New Port News track their customers’ every move and send updates, specials and discounts to customers that continue to exemplify certain online buying or navigation behaviors. This puts New Port News at the top of the customers mind, and even if they weren’t planning on spending money that day, they might just take a look at the page they sent them to use the 20% off coupon. This also gives NPN the opportunity to suggest other products to them, who are now loyal trusting customers because of that constant relationship building communication.

Online coupons are an easy and effective way to enhance your advertising and marketing efforts. According to AllBusiness.com, “more than 70% of online coupon users say they’re more likely to open an e-mail if a coupon is offered, and 64 percent are more likely to click a banner ad or search a listing if they know a coupon is offered.”

Sound too expensive or complicated for your small to medium sized business budget and resources? These online discount ideas can be easily implemented through Marketing Automation.  Net-Results Marketing Automation is a great and affordable way to track your customers, find out what they buy and like, and send them coupons directly, based on what their purchase patterns are. Additionally, setting up “win back” campaigns in Net-Results Marketing Automation is as simple as clicking a button, and watching customers flood back to get their discount.