Free Trials, Coupons and More Help Marketing Online

Coupons have been a long used marketing tactic in the offline world. From as far back as the dawn of direct mail marketers have been using coupon codes, cut out offers and direct mailers that provide a one time offer, discount or free trial to lure consumers into trying their product or service.
This method is quite genius in my opinion as if a company truly does offer a quality service or product then getting the consumer interested by offering them a deal, discount or trial up front makes sense. If their product delivers on the promises that had the consumer interested in the first place, then chances are they will stick around and continue to purchase the product or service at the regular and more profitable price point.
With the dawn of online marketing and e-commerce a question that was asked is how can the coupon concept come into play online?
There are two ways that the online retailing world has embraced the idea of coupons.
The Coupon or Promotional Code
The first is the general coupon code or promotional code concept. A market that is well known for this is the beauty and skin care industry. Take a large online skin care retailer such as SkinStore.com. They carry hundreds of different brands and products, and thousands of women and men make purchases from their site each week.
Every month you can find a SkinStore coupon code that will save you a flat dollar amount or percentage off your total purchase. Once one of their customers finds a promo code they tend to re-order more products from them and seek out another coupon code since they know they can get some great savings from their site. This helps create customer loyalty and repeat sales.
The Free Trial
The other popular coupon/promotional method that beauty and skin care companies use is the free trial.
While some people feel this is a deceiving marketing tactic, I find it somewhat brilliant if it’s executed in the right way.
Simply put a brand offers a trial of their product for a set period of time. This could be 14 – 30 days. The customer doesn’t pay anything up front, but if they enjoy the product and keep it then they will be charged. So at the end of the day the customer still must see the value in the product for the price point since the trial is often temporary.
The trouble with this marketing tactic is that often times people don’t understand that the trial isn’t actually a free product, but rather a period of time they can test out the product and decide if they’re willing to pay the full retail price for it. Some companies hide the fact that the customer will be billed after the trial period which is when the trouble begins to happen.
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