Coupons and Specials
Everyone loves a bargain. And everyone loves feeling that they are being treated “specially”. You can roll these two concepts into one to get some return business for your jewelry. Offering special coupons for former customers is a good way to get them to come back for a return purchase. Once again, email is often the best way to offer a coupon though some people try the more expensive route of real mail. You see companies sending junk mail all the time about this, saying “special deals for our valued customers”. Because I know these are big name corporations, I tend to gloss it over. But when I get a coupon like that from a person who makes homemade things I’m more likely to look at it because I know they’re not some faceless company and the special that they’re offering may indeed be a good discount.
The coupon can be a simple printed thing that you send in with each order. To redeem the coupon, the customer sends in the coupon with their order. Offering the coupon for redemption online may be a bit of a problem technically. You need some sort of way to differentiate from your normal purchases and a purchase with a coupon. If your method of purchase doesn’t have a mechanism by which to offer coupons (as in: doggone it Paypal purchases) I’ve found that one way to get around this is to give out a “special” URL that only has the items that can be used with the coupon. It’s a bit of work, because on that page you have to list each item as a completely new item in Paypal with the coupon discount applied. You don’t need to link it through your home page. If someone that you didn’t send a coupon to “accidentally” finds out about the page that’s no problem; I’d rather have someone buy something at a discount than not buy at all.
Also, take advantage of the seasons. People are seasonal after all. When the holiday season rolls around they’ll start looking for X-mas related items and gifts. If you happen to send out an email with a holiday special or coupon when they happen to be in looking for holiday gifts, it’s likely that good things can happen! This is especially good for returning customers because a lot of times they need to get a gift quickly (procrastinators!) and it’s faster and psychologically easier for them to buy jewelry from a place they’ve gone to before.
