The one client that uses them has good success with them — I don’t know the exact numbers, but they are an added incentive for members to purchase other products. I do know that the success varies, as it always does, on other aspects of the offer as well i.e. new product vs. new deal on an old product, how much the coupon is worth, how wide of an appeal the particular product has, etc.

In the case of the client I am currently trying to convince, I did mention the success that coupons have. His position is that this follow-up email is going out to people who have already had a deal, so he is uncomfortable giving them another one (yes, I know, but that was his answer…).

But I at least have him thinking about it, and told him we could always split-test it later: without a coupon now, and with a coupon in the future if he is not happy with the initial response. What better way to prove the success of coupons!

~Graham

Coupons aren’t exactly what you’d call a high-prestige/high-dollar gig for copywriters, so few seem to push them on clients.

Still, nothing endears us to clients like success…

I think the biggest stumbling block is the digital nature of online coupons — you can theoretically use them over and over. I know there are ways around this, but from a client point of view it may seem overwhelmingly complicated.

The answer, of course, is to design back-end ecommerce systems to handle digital coupons more efficiently. But the whole supply/demand thing seems to be at a stalemate: eshops would likely use them if they were available, and programmers would likely create it if there were demand…

~Graham