Since the advent of ecommerce many people have started to choose online stores over physical stores when purchasing a particular item or product. With the convenience and comfort of buying online, the industry of ecommerce has started to rise. As a result, marketing strategies of businesses have also changed to an online spectrum. One of the best examples of this is the promotional code. Have you ever experienced having double thought of buying an item online but suddenly a promo code appears making the price of the product lower and it seems to be tempting to buy? If yes, that exactly how marketers use promotional codes to encourage more customers to buy their products. Hence, in this article, we are going to discuss what promotional codes are and how they work in ecommerce spectrum.
What are promo codes?
Basically, promotional codes are alphanumeric strings that several online stores offer to encourage and attract more customers to buy products on their website. Promo codes are also marketing strategies. Most of the promo codes available online are designed for discount purposes. The discount of a product can either be just a percentage or a specific amount only. Some promo codes also offer with free gift wrapping or free shipping fees. Again, these strategies provide customers another reason and urge to buy products.
Defined by Microsoft, promotional code or also known as discount code or coupon code is made of numbers and letters combination. Promo codes are also used for specific purposes like holiday marketing campaign.
Why do promo codes work?
Generally, when a store provides promo codes to the market, it offers incentives to the customers to buy products. Hence, this will be a win-win situation between customers and the business. Customers will be able to buy the product with benefits such as lower price or free shipping and at the same time, the business will be able to sell the products and gain profit from it. According to studies, promotional codes have direct impact on the entire shopping experience of customers. Moreover, studies also show that people who get promotional codes had heightened levels of oxytocin, which is a hormone that produces happiness.
Promotional codes and marketing efforts
A lot of businesses also use promotional codes to track their marketing efforts. This will allow them to see which platforms generate the most traffic or leading to conversions. Business owners have the ability to track their marketing efforts by associating certain promo code to a particular advertisement or marketing campaign. For instance, you could make slightly different codes so your marketing efforts like advertisement on different social media platforms will have a unique platform specific promotional codes.
How to use promotional codes?
Promotional codes are very easy to use. When a customer uses a promotion code during the process of checking out, the online store verifies all the conditions of the promotion are validated and satisfied. There are complex programs that technology utilizes to make promo codes function well in every system or website.
Lastly, there are different types of promo codes that online stores offer to their customers; public codes, private codes, restricted codes. In most cases, it is always advisable to use promotional codes in your website so you can boost traffic and generate leads.
