How to use coupons to entice customers on Hotfrog

It’s a tough and volatile economy for small businesses worldwide.

A dose of resilience and innovation, however, will help you on your path towards becoming a success story. So, buckle up, streamline and offer the break that many consumers are waiting for in this tough environment.

An effective and innovative way to reach budget-conscious clients is to offer a variety of coupons to promote your products and services.

Coupons don’t need introduction. After getting quite a bad reputation in the nineties for being used by packaged goods marketers to keep volume moving during recession times, they proved themselves an effective sales tool for every conceivable size and type of business so much so that consumers today have come to expect businesses offering these deals. Today’s challenging financial times paired with the transcendence of digital and social media have turned coupons into a hot commodity amongst online customers, with 87% of all shoppers reported to use coupons to finalise their purchases.

Your Hotfrog profile allows you to use coupons to entice potential customers to click on your profile and purchase a product.

But how can you make the most of your Hotfrog coupons feature? The following are some helpful tips:

• Appeal to a wide audience.Limiting the product range limits potential purchases.
• Keep it clear.If you’re offering 10% off before tax, your coupon should say that. While you want to appeal to a large audience, don’t leave room for misinterpretation of your offer.
• Make a solid offer.Customers tend to be drawn to coupons that offer dollars off discounts because the savings are obvious. So, you might want to consider a coupon offer of at least 5 percent. Coupons that provide a discount with a low minimum purchase threshold, such as $5 off a $15 purchase, or even no minimum at all, such as $10 off any order, also consistently yield good results.
• Use a variety of expiration dates.Short expirations will encourage frequent return visits to your Hotfrog profile or website, whereas longer dates will encourage customers to share your coupons and perhaps even blog about your bargains.
• Use specific starting and ending dates.If you want your discount promotion to begin on a certain day or at a certain time, make sure that date or time is clearly communicated through your coupon. Without clearly communicating the start date in advance, you might be accused of using a bait and switch tactic, which could lead to lots of unhappy customers and perhaps even legal trouble. Also, make sure you don’t have discount promotions that go on indefinitely, so make sure you include an end date with your coupon. Furthermore, an end date can create a sense of urgency around the promotion that can motivate consumers to act sooner rather than later.
• Use coupons to get rid of excess inventory.Instead of clearance items, offer a deep discount using a coupon. The shopper will feel even more success at getting an exclusive, discounted deal.

Adding coupons to your Hotfrog profile is a very simple process, which only requires you to access your dashboard and scroll down to the editable section called Coupons.

Click on “Add more coupons” and you’ll be redirected to a page with options for you to:

• Introduce a headline.
• Introduce the details of the offer.
• Specify any restrictions or legal information that applies to your offer as well as maximum number of coupons.
• Identify the expiry date and promotional code that applies to that particular coupon. Creating a unique promotional code for a specific offer will help you track any incoming enquiries back to your Hotfrog profile.
• Indicate whether the coupon is active or inactive. Remember to make the coupon ‘inactive’ when you’ve run out of inventory or you no longer offer the product. Your coupon details will be saved so you can activate them again in the future.

Once you have completed the necessary information, click on the Preview coupon button found in the top left corner of the section and Hotfrog will provide you with a preview of your coupon.

If you are pleased with the final result you can submit your coupon. Immediately, interested customers will be able to view your new offer in your Hotfrog profile and will be provided the option to view your coupon and take advantage of its benefits.