THE POWER OF SAVINGS SHARING
Facebook advertising can be frustrating for many small businesses. Building an audience can be hard enough, let alone reaching those potential clients, and getting them to share your information. Many businesses invest money in Facebook advertising, which can be rewarding, but organic “free'“ advertising is always the ultimate goal.
On April 28th Lowes shared a coupon that excited the social media masses and was shared quite possibly millions of times, you may have had a friend forward it to you via text or through Facebook. You might have even seen people posting pictures of their plants and items with the very low prices. This type of exposure is what every businesses strives for, and I am here to tell you that it’s possible to do this on a small scale for you too.
The power of savings
There is nothing people love more than saving money. Especially female consumers, whose purchasing power in the US annually make up 5-15 trillion dollars, yes trillion, with a “T”.
The power of a coupon can propel a campaign without any added marketing expense, just because the coupons value is enough for viewers to get excited about and share. So while offering a coupon does kick back a cost to the business, the reward is often greater than that expense.
Perceived Value
So why did the Lowe’s coupon get so much traction online? The answer is simple, it had a high perceived value. Perceived value is the difference between getting a 15% off coupon from Kohls in the mail and a 30% coupon. When I receive the 15% off coupon I typically throw it out, when I get the 30% off, I typically send the code to my mom via text or email, then I will purchase something online or even head in store. I perceive the 15% as a low value to me, and the 30% off as great. 15% off is nothing to scoff at, and while it’s still a deal, it’s my perception of the deal that drives me to the final purchase.
For this reason the Lowe’s coupon performed extremely well, it was a high value coupon with a low purchase point. For most a $5 off $10 purchase has a greater perceived value than say $50 off $100 purchase. Both coupons technically have the same value, but the idea of getting $10 worth of plants (from a marked down section) for $5 meant a trip to the store for a lot of excited people.
Knowing where the line is for your clients takes testing and knowing your audience well. I have worked with a lot of restaurants and their coupon model is typically pretty standard. But what if you’re a roofing company? A roof is a huge expense and getting someone to take that leap requires a totally different level of value. The coupon model works, but for each business it must be personalized, your marketer should be able to help with analytics to study your core demographic and what they are willing to spend and when, and some testing can be performed because coupons are 100% trackable.
Savings Sharing
The highly perceived value of the Lowe’s coupon and the excitement of the surprise value after texting your request was really a double hit and a recipe for success in sharability. The value was so great that customers were just so excited to help their friends get this deal, which sparked the great sharing event. I’ve read studies that proved that people share things that make them happy, so the joy of saving money coupled with the adrenaline and excitement of essentially “gambling” on the coupon created the perfect environment for online sharing. This idea can be easily recreated for small business, it just takes a little thought.
The cost to your business
Lowe’s is a big box store, and are able to eat the added expense of the couponers who hit up the store just to get the steals, the pay off lies in the items that those who shopped that day added to their carts. Getting someone in the store is often enough to increase that sale from $10 spent to $100. Those who used the Lowe’s coupon may have typically been a Home Depot customer, those underlying purchases were possibly done at Lowe’s simply out of convenience. This also build a business to consumer trust that may direct a customer to Lowes next time instead of Home Depot, because they are now top of mind when people think savings and home improvement, or just because of the positive reputation that the business has then built.
How can I make it work for me?
If you know your products, your audience, and have an established funnel of consumers on Social media or email, you can test coupons of varying values to hone in on what your best perceived value is, and how sharable each method might be. If this all seems like a huge time investment for you, but you’re ready to give it a try, consider consulting our agency, we LOVE testing coupons and social media too, we can make this work for you.