6 simple and practical principles to effectively increase the use of coupons

Friends who do not need coupons in their marketing work, please close this page and leave immediately, otherwise it will be a waste to have a set of theories but nowhere to apply them. If the previous article "Three steps to effectively understand users' real needs: listen, watch, and try" can help us understand the "opponent", then this article is about how to "subdue" the opponent with effective weapons.

Everyone knows about various types of coupons and we often come into contact with them in our daily lives. They are also the most commonly used marketing tools on the Internet . Are there any effective tips for using this "tool"? The kind that you can use just by looking at it?

Please look down! In order to better demonstrate the key points, this article will explain the tips for using coupons in an outline shown in a mind map.

1. Common types of coupons

(1) Vouchers

It is also called cash coupons, deduction coupons, discount coupons, etc. They have different names, but they are all used to deduct cash of equal value in transactions. It is a marketing tool that extends from offline to online. It is a type of voucher that is popular and most accepted by the public. When the platform creates this tool, it is better to choose a name with high dissemination, such as vouchers and cash vouchers.

(2) Tokens

Generally speaking, it is an online virtual currency with currency transaction attributes, which only circulates in the system built or agreed upon by the publisher. According to usage, it is usually divided into points and experience money.

1. Points: Platform virtual currency rewards obtained by users when they complete designated behaviors, which can be used to redeem designated products or services. They are widely used to extend user transaction behaviors. Common ones include points from credit cards, e-commerce , and food delivery platforms.
2. Experience money: It is a virtual currency that is used to replace the equivalent amount of cash to complete the entire purchase process on the platform. It is recovered after the transaction is completed, but the user enjoys the transaction benefits. The main purpose is to allow users to experience the complete transaction process. It is generally used for products with higher barriers to use, such as: mutual financial products.

(3) Red Envelope

Some platforms also call it cash. Unlike vouchers, it is often given as a reward after a specified behavior is completed, rather than before the behavior begins ( Alipay red envelopes are an example of the exact opposite).

(4) Special coupons

In order to adapt to market changes and the needs of the platform itself, special coupons are constantly being introduced. The most common ones are special purchase qualifications and interest rate increase coupons. Some products operated by some partners rarely use these special coupons, so you can learn about them.

• Special purchasing qualifications: preferential purchasing qualifications obtained through designated behaviors, common ones include group buying and group purchasing, etc.
• Interest rate coupons: The expected future returns of a product are shown in terms of interest rates. Interest rate coupons are used to increase the yield of the product. This is more common in mutual finance products.

2. Common coupon attributes

1. Commonalities

By understanding the above common types of coupons, we can see that although the ways to obtain and take effect of each coupon are different, they are essentially a means for the operating entity to achieve its operating goals by giving up part of its own rights and interests in exchange for users to complete transactions or more transactions. In other words, the common feature of these coupons is that they exist to achieve or promote operational purposes.

2. Value

• Driving attribute: Coupons have the attribute of completing transactions in essence and hitting people’s greedy attribute. When a tool is born with the attribute of dealing with human nature, it has the innate conditions to become a powerful weapon.
• Strengthening attributes: If reaching a deal is the beginning of the road, another attribute of the coupon is to make the road longer and wider. By setting a threshold for using coupons, users are pushed towards the operational purpose. The main thing users have to do is fight against their greedy nature, which is often difficult to resist.

3. Core

There is only one important core: to increase the utilization rate of coupons.

Based on past experience in Internet finance operations , every 1% increase in the coupon usage rate can bring in more than 3 million in sales. Compared with holding another event and issuing more coupons, increasing the usage rate is the most cost-effective. This does not mean that we do not attach importance to the coverage of the population, the total number of distributions and the transactions that can be brought in, but among all matters, only the focus on improving the utilization rate is the core of the work of the operators, and this core is often hidden in the settings before the event starts.

Fortunately, you will become more and more proficient based on the accumulation of experience, but the prerequisite is: you have to understand these coupons and master the skills of using them.

3. Tips for using coupons

1. How to select coupons

Take the purpose as the direction and the effect as the decision point. Remember, this order must never be reversed. According to common operational purposes, we can classify them into two directions:

1. Complete/improve performance (sorted by effect): vouchers > red envelopes > special vouchers > tokens
2. Maintenance users: Tokens > Red Packets > Vouchers > Special Vouchers

2. Tips to improve usage

(1) Principle of value intuition

Always put the cash equivalent of the coupon first in the display, and always give priority to the coupon type that can most intuitively show the cash equivalent, such as: vouchers and red envelopes. There is no need to consider which coupon will actually benefit users more. If users cannot know how much they will benefit at first glance, a group of users will be lost during the calculation process.

The fact is, with a 10-yuan voucher and 1,000 points, the user will always know better what the 10-yuan voucher means to him.

(2) Threshold voucher principle

In 101 out of 100 operations involving coupons, the usage rate of threshold coupons was greater than the usage rate of no-cost coupons. Although it seems to contradict conventional thinking, it is a fact. This fact stems from the fact that people always cherish things that they have to pay for. The cup of milk tea that you have to queue for an hour to buy always tastes better, the pair of shoes that only one person out of 100 can buy is more precious, and the girl that you pursue for a long time is more cherished.

The coupons obtained by reaching the threshold mean that the coupons have more memorable points, are easier to recall, and have more possibilities of being used. However, the higher the threshold is not necessarily better. Instead, it is important to add fun and memorable points to the appropriate threshold. For example, coupons limited to 100 at 11 o'clock every day, coupons obtained by answering questions, and coupons redeemed with points. Memory points are implanted behind these behaviors.

(3) Principle of greater par value

No matter how high the threshold for using coupons is set, we will be surprised to find that, under the setting based on reasonable facts (not deviating from the price range that users often pay), the coupon with the largest face value in the same batch will have the best usage effect (bring the most performance or the largest number of uses). That's because users always lean towards the side of the scale where they can benefit more, and their priority is not how much money they have to pay, but how much more money they can earn.

(4) The principle of conformity

Continuing with the "settings based on reasonable facts" mentioned in the previous article, it is mainly used in usage thresholds, and must be the thresholds that users purchase most frequently.

References can be obtained from two aspects:

• First, the platform’s past data, which thresholds have been purchased the most times;
• The second is to refer to competing products and see which thresholds are commonly used. You must know that no matter how the influencing factors change, users' established purchasing habits are difficult to change.

(5) Principle of proactive notification

Generally speaking, it is not recommended to give coupons directly to users (refer to point "2"). If you really need to give coupons, you must inform users, otherwise it will be difficult to increase the usage rate (except for giving away cash for free). The forms can be: SMS, push , homepage mask ad space , etc.

(6) Contrast setting principles

Sometimes, in order to increase the utilization rate of target coupons, we will issue a few more coupons, some with the same threshold but different denominations, and some with the same denomination but different thresholds, to guide users to compare and select the target coupons.

The problem is complicated, right?

But the result is that this system helps the user get psychological cues that he is smarter, and after comparison, he makes the choice that seems to be the most effective.

IV. Notes on coupon settings

In order to make operational behaviors adjustable, it is necessary to make certain settings adjustable, certain data viewable, and prevent brushing.

(1) Configurable items (conventional items, subject to actual needs)

• Voucher types: vouchers, red envelopes, points, etc.;
• Voucher attributes: denomination, usage threshold, usage scope, validity period, quantity;
• Specific attributes: coupon threshold, coupon frequency, percentage of each coupon, adding or deleting coupons;
• Note: The above attributes can be fixed or configured. When configurable, the impact of the changes must be communicated to the product in advance to prevent complaints from users who have already obtained coupons due to changes in coupon attributes.

(2) Viewable items

Relevant data viewed through real-time backend retrieval:

• Voucher status: total number of vouchers issued, number of vouchers used, utilization rate, corresponding performance, and cost;
• User situation: number of participating users, profile of participating users (life cycle distribution, gender, region, age, etc.).

(3) Anti-brush design

In order to avoid unnecessary waste of costs, we need to pay special attention to the following points. Usually, we can block some users who take advantage of the service by:

1. Set up anti-fraud measures: For example, each person can only get one coupon of each type per day, the total number is limited to 1,000, and a transaction of 1,000 yuan or more is required to obtain a coupon, etc.
2. Technical anti-brushing: IP restriction, device lock, verification code.

The above is the content of this article. By listing the types of coupons commonly used on the Internet and analyzing their properties, we find that the key to good use is to increase the utilization rate. There are 6 tips for reference. Finally, the precautions for setting up coupons are reminded to help us make good use of the most commonly used tools in Internet operations .

Friends are welcome to leave a message to share their thoughts and operational content that they are interested in. See you next time.

Source: Lexington