How to distribute promotional codes | 5 strategies to reward customers and boost sales

Offering promotional codes is a method of offering your customers an extra incentive to buy – it’s as simple as that. When it comes to converting sales, they’re a weapon with a strike rate that’s frankly hard to beat. They’re typically calculated to not make a huge impact on profit margin, and are distributed inline with campaigns where the name of the game is high volume sales.

The question is, how do you distribute them effectively? You don’t want to devalue your brand and give the impression you’re on some sort of closing down sale, or fall into the trap of customers looking at you as the cost-based retailer, as opposed to a trusted resource and premium operator.

In this article we’ll talk through 5 effective and responsible ways to distribute promo codes to your audience.

1. Advertise them on your website

Is there anything more annoying than making an online purchase and then discovering you could have got 10% off? Sure, you can get a refund and buy again, or maybe customer services are super helpful and refund you the difference, but it’s a hassle.

If it’s a promotional code that’s supposed to be publicly available for anyone to use and not an exclusive or personalised one, make it impossible to miss. Have it advertised in a banner at the top of your website, add it to relevant product pages, and even consider adding a timer to the banner showing when the offer ends to introduce a sense of urgency to it. The more users browsing your site see it, the more likely your eCommerce operation will see more sales.

Less is more when it comes to this approach. There’s a balance between making sure potential customers are aware of your offer, and making your online store front look like a digital bargain bin.

2. Put them in your email campaigns

Email marketing campaigns are an ideal avenue through which to distribute promotional codes to your subscribers. Email subscribers are extremely valuable, as they’re essentially an audience you can reliably reach with your marketing efforts, and it’s always easier to retain a customer than it is to find a new one.

Craft compelling newsletters that highlight the benefits of your products or services along with the promotional codes where relevant. You could also personalise the emails to make customers feel valued and understood, and achieve better sales results. By advertising your promotional codes through your email newsletters, and potentially using it to offer exclusive or even unadvertised promotional codes, you can strengthen customer loyalty and drive sales.

If you do the exclusive or unadvertised promotional codes on a regular enough basis, this could even be part of the pitch to get more customers to opt in to your newsletters.

Pro tip: For best results, go big. Go multichannel! Utilise email, SMS, social media, push notifications if you have a mobile app.

If you’re utilising an instant win game to distribute promotional codes, consult our marketing games promotion guide.

3. Attach them to instore events

You can easily add value to your bricks and mortar store by organising in-store events and rewarding attendees with promotional codes. Host product launches, workshops, exclusive shopping nights, or even Q & As with relevant speakers in your industry or niche to create anticipation and FOMO, and ultimately bring people through the doors.

By providing promotional codes as a reward for attending these events, you can generate immediate sales, increase foot traffic to your store, and have a chance to make an impression and encourage repeat visits.

Pro tip: Gamifying these sorts of instore events is a great way to add extra excitement, collect user data, distribute promotional codes, and even reward one lucky attendee with a grand prize.

For example, if you’re running a product launch night after hours, it could all end with an instant win game like a Spin the Wheel or a Slot Machine, which can be made quickly and easily on the Drimify gamification platform. Attendees enter for a chance to win the product being launched, but while only one entrant will get the big prize, everyone else could be rewarded with a discount code. If you keep the tills open, you could make those conversions on the spot.

4. Sweeten your street marketing campaigns

Street marketing might seem a little old fashioned in today’s digital world, but in some ways, that’s to its advantage. Making a face-to-face impression, answering questions on the spot, and potentially delivering an experience can make a huge impression on someone’s day, and increase the likelihood of them engaging with your business in the future.

Deploying street teams or brand ambassadors in high-traffic areas to talk up your brand, business, or products while distributing promotional codes can be highly effective, particularly for geographically bound businesses like cafes, restaurants, and bricks and mortar stores. In fact, if you’re opening a new location, this can be a great way to jumpstart business.

Pro tip: Combine the old school with the new school. People aren’t as receptive to street marketing as they used to be pre-smartphones and 4G, but they are susceptible to video games. By incorporating gamification elements to your street marketing efforts, either with purposely hired terminals or QR codes that link to a gamification experience through users’ phones, you can not only break the ice and stoke the fires of competition, but maximise your chances of getting email opt-ins, and maximise user attention on your branded message.

Whatever game engine you customise on the Drimify platform, it’s easy to include a promotional code, either through an instant win, or with an intermediate screen at the end of the experience.

5. Partner with appropriate influencers and give them their own personalised promo codes

Social media influencers are now in every industry, every niche, and everyone’s feed. From trainspotting to bike maintenance, cleaning tips to recipe ideas, there really is an influencer for everything, and whether you think you’re above it or not, you’re almost certainly following a couple of them and letting them inform your decision making as a consumer.

If you can find an influencer who:

• Aligns with your brand and values
• Has a significant audience that has crossover with your demographic
• Is known to like your products, or is not on record as not liking your products

It might be worth bringing them into the fold as a brand ambassador. Influencers carry credibility, as regardless of sponsorships and paid endorsements being labelled or referenced inline with social media guidelines, influencers are trading off their credibility and likability. Giving them their own trackable, personal discount codes means you can effectively see what influencers are helping you move product, and which ones aren’t.

A good partnership with an influencer can massively amplify your brand’s reach, and coupled with their personal codes, they can help you make significant conversions through that expanded reach.

Key takeaway

Distributing promotional codes in a strategic and well thought out manner can be a powerful tool to reward your customers and boost conversions. Distributing them haphazardly and as a last-minute reaction to business pressures can harm your margins, and harm your brand image.

The 5 strategies listed here are a great starting point when it comes to fine-tuning your approach. Experiment with them, monitor their success through your POS software, and continually optimise for continually improving results. Stay proactive, stay creative, and you can significantly improve your sales figures.