As a nation of avid entrepreneurs and driven business leaders, the American public have long had an eye for a bargain. The US is currently the largest advertising market in the modern world, with figures published in 2021 finding over $285 billion to have been spent on US advertising in that year alone. But, with global economists warning of rising inflation and a potentially imminent recession, it should come as no surprise that many American consumers may be looking to tighten their purse strings.
Of course, it’s important that consumers continue to support both their local economies and American businesses on a national scale to avoid significant damages to the nation’s global financial standings, meaning marketers must find ways to entice the public into a healthy pattern of reasoned spending.
The answer, it appears, may well lie in an often-forgotten American pursuit, that being the somewhat surprisingly intricate art of couponing. Thankfully, modern couponing no longer requires consumers to scour through print media, collect physical tokens or perform complicated mental math to find the best deals, with digital coupons and promo codes, savings are intuitively applied to qualifying purchases.
The Power of Digital Discounts
Digital coupons, discount codes and online promotional offers aren’t exactly cutting-edge marketing techniques, however, recently published data goes some way to explaining why digital couponing is becoming more relevant with regards to modern consumer spending habits. For example, the great shift towards e-commerce retail during the course of the global pandemic saw over 142 million US adults redeeming digital coupons in 2020 alone, with this value rising further in subsequent years.
In fact, it’s estimated that as many as 90% of all US consumers have used coupons to secure deals in recent years, but the reason for this apparent resurgence may not be entirely down to necessity. As previously mentioned, e-commerce retail has been growing significantly since 2020, with the market passing $1 trillion in sales for the first time in 2023. Naturally, growing markets lead to innovations in marketing behaviors, allowing digital couponing to be transformed by a few smart business leaders.
A Fresh Promotional Approach
This idea is perfectly illustrated by the newly launched digital discount platform Couponblend. In direct response to the growing number of shoppers favoring e-commerce stores over traditional brick and mortar retailers, the team at Couponblend have carefully developed a comprehensive digital discount and coupon code directory designed to provide consumers with a simple way to save money online.
Rather than searching through individual sites for active discounts, signing up to direct mailing lists or needing to install a browser-based plugin to trade behavioral information for relevant promotional offers, the Couponblend platform simply aggregates all active discounts offered by over 35,000 online stores into one easy-to-navigate directory, granting consumers the freedom to browse promotions anonymously.
Building a Trusting Audience
This aspect of anonymity may well prove to be the most important factor when it comes to attracting consumers to the platform. Research published in 2021 found that 86% of 2000 surveyed US adults claimed to feel a growing concern regarding data privacy online, with 78% expressing fears about the amount of personal data currently being collected by online stores, marketers and social media sites.
The problem with a large number of existing online discount and coupon code services is that for shoppers to access deals and find promotions relevant to their needs, they’ll often need to be willing to exchange some amount of personal data in the form of cookies, email or social media accounts.
By removing this exchange, platforms like Couponblend are able to start rebuilding some of the lost faith and trust that many consumers exhibit towards online marketing, and by extension, digital discount code providers. Ultimately allowing similar services to flourish amongst an already growing e-commerce industry to provide consumers, retailers and the wider economy with desirable benefits.
Connecting Consumers and Brands
This also ties in with the secondary advantage of the Couponblend model, that being the company’s submittal service for e-commerce retailers. Using the same easily navigated site as the consumer arm of the platform, online businesses of any size are able to submit their own custom discount codes and promotional offers to be included in the service’s primary directory, blending both resources together.
Bridging this gap between consumer and supplier helps to bring the essence of e-commerce retail back from the hands of frustrating marketing techniques and into the grasp of a simplified supply and demand system. Consumers are free to search for relevant discounts without worrying about how much of their data is being exchanged, and suppliers are able to market active promotions directly to their target audience without needing to resort to potentially image-harming marketing techniques.
Summary
To summarize, as the world of retail continues to evolve in line with changing consumer habits and global economic events, approaches towards targeted marketing, customer acquisition and the use of personal data are likely to affect the way that the average consumer views retail businesses moving forwards.
For retailers of any size, it’s important to remember that building a trusting relationship with shoppers is often the first step to creating a long-lasting and respected brand. Perhaps in times of economic and social instability such as these, utilizing reliable promotional models may help this process to flourish.
