Email Marketing: Can We Eliminate Coupon Codes?
I've always had mixed feelings about coupon codes. On the one hand, they're a fairly simple and convenient way to implement email promotions for subsets of your customers. On the other hand, they have some major downsides.
First, forcing customers to remember codes is clumsy and violates a basic usability principle: don't force visitors to rely on their memories. (Sure, they might be able to copy and paste rather than remember, but that's still forcing them to do too much work.)
Second, for customers who don't have a coupon, the coupon field acts as a disincentive to check out. The coupon blatantly announces that other customers are being offered a better deal!
I've noticed that some retailers try to minimize the impact of this second problem by making the coupon field more subtle. But really, how silly is that? You're just making it harder for those who do have a coupon.
A better solution is to eliminate the coupon altogether, and let your system do the work. I encountered a good example of this recently, implemented by www.homedecorators.com.
I was shopping for a new TV stand. I'd even added one to my cart (just to check the shipping charges) but didn't follow through with the purchase.
A few days later, I received an email from homedecorators.com offering $30 off any TV stand. A good follow-up, but the best part was the implementation: there was no "coupon code" to be found. I simply clicked the special promotional link in the email, and the "coupon" was automatically applied to my shopping cart.
What a great solution. I didn't have to remember (or even copy and paste) some cryptic code. And that coupon field that alienates coupon-less shoppers? It's not needed.
I suppose we'll never get rid of coupon codes/fields entirely. But this system of automatically applying email promotions is a great first step.
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Yes, DM and other traditional marketing channels are problematic. That's why I don't think we'll see the end of coupon codes in the near future. But for companies that only market online (like most of our clients) coupon codes and fields often aren't necessary.
Here's where I'm at right now: a vanity URL that takes the user to the correct destination while the coupon/promotion is added to the basket automatically. A triggered adspot or overlay could be used to identify to the user that this is the case and to go about their business because everything is taken care of and your coupon is in your shopping cart.
The challenge I still have is when coupons require a series of actions/parameters to become valid (ie. buy two pairs of socks and save 10%). I suppose you can address this through further messaging, reliance on the offline driver's messaging or coupon presentation in the basket/shopping cart. There is further complexity with coupon stacking/compatibility issues, but that shouldn't be concerning to this discussion as these visitors should be fresh sessions without any residual baggage or cart contents since they're offline driven.
Any other ideas?
One of our clients calls it "Source Code", but a better name might be "Catalog Number" or "Customer ID" or whatever.
Instructions in the DM material must be very clear. And the code must be very easy to remember and type. A simple word is probably best, and the field should not be case sensitive.
Doesn't look like we're going to get a hand from the community on this one though -- that's too bad. It's an important topic I wish we, as a group (of ecom/ux professionals,) could address. I guess vanity URLs aren't horrible. I'll let you know if I implement and how it is received.
Well I think we CAN get rid of them in online channels, which was really what my original post was addressing. When we get into DM etc., it gets more complicated, as we've seen...
I'm not totally happy with my suggested alternative solution, but at least it's pretty simple to implement. And creatively, it could add some fun to a campaign. People do like to feel like they've be let in on a secret.
Thanks for sharing your experience with Vanity URLs. Maybe someone else will chime in with other ideas.
You could also play up the alt. reality angle and have floating images of the product with the discounted price on the users screen when they hold up the barcode, which would be pretty cool.
The other problem is people without cameras (I'd be interested in knowing this demographic actually as I'm guessing it consists mainly of people who build their own computers), but for them I guess you'd use vanity URL's and coupon codes.
edit: Or if you want to get really complex you could have a system where people could take photos of their coupons (say with their phone) and upload them to your site, which would then auto-detect barcodes and read them, but I could see that having serious bugs that would harm the user experience.