Written by: Joe Pappalardo
The go-to social platform of choice is Facebook. According to a recent survey by BuzzStream, 38% of respondents said Facebook is their preferred social platform for following their favorite brands. While Facebook is not considered the ideal channel to pitch a new product (HubSpot survey), it’s a great place to enrich the sales process – build brand recognition and loyalty.
So, what do customers want to see from the brands they follow on Facebook? They want unique content. Information such as offers / promotions, product announcements including updates and recalls, and how-to advice are the top 5 categories according to a study conducted by FleishmanHillard.
- Can I limit the total number of coupons available via Facebook? Whether it’s 10 or 1,000, retailers want to know that their liability will not exceed a pre-defined threshold, say 10,000 or 10 million.
- Ensuring that a consumer will receive only 1 Facebook coupon.
- Facebook coupon liability extending past the promotion end date. In other words, they do not want to honor discounts long after the promotion is over, especially if thousands of offers were dispensed.
Limiting Offer Liability
While some retailers welcome the opportunity to drive as many consumers as possible to their Facebook page to access an offer, other retailers will use Facebook to promote an event to create a sense of exclusivity and excitement about the brand (the first 100 people to “like” a post will receive a 10% OFF their next purchase coupon). It will depend on the campaign goals.
Retailers who want to limit offer accessibility (and liability) while inspiring people to visit their Facebook page will employ one-time-use coupons. One-time-use offers guarantee that a consumer receives and redeems only one coupon. The consumer can request it a million times and she will still receive the same offer over and over again. Once the offer is used, it will expire in all of the channels the consumer has viewed it.
Secure One-time-use Offers
The ability to limit offer availability is based on a security model that sits behind coupon delivery. Retailers will know when the offer was received on Facebook, when it was viewed, and when and where it was redeemed, providing a comprehensive picture of the purchase funnel in addition to controlling coupon accessibility. When the number of allotted offers has been dispensed, the promotion ends, guaranteeing that an offer that goes viral will not result in a huge financial liability for the retailer. The security model ensures that only one offer will be assigned to a Facebook ID (as opposed to using cookies which do not guarantee one offer per consumer). As a result, retailers can confidently deploy Facebook marketing efforts to increase brand awareness and a sense of urgency.
Regardless of how elaborate or creative the campaign, the process for delivering one-time-use Facebook coupons to consumers is simple. Visitors to a retailer’s Facebook page receive a one-time-use coupon when they click on the posted offer. The consumer then has the option of printing the coupon (if viewing the coupon from a desktop computer) or saving a mobile version of the coupon in Passbook or the retailer’s mobile app. The coupon can be used either online or in-store. If online, the consumer enters the unique coupon code during check-out. If in-store, the customer can present the paper coupon or have the coupon barcode scanned directly from the smartphone at checkout. The coupon is then marked as redeemed, unable to be used again.
Real Results
One of our retailer customers experienced a significant increase in basket size, as consumers were drawn into retail stores by the Facebook offer and left with an average additional $30 of items in their shopping carts on more than 150,000 redemptions.
Retailers have a real opportunity to create a compelling Facebook experience for consumers. By delivering offers and promotions, CodeBroker retailer customers have found that they are able to drive consumers to their store locations and increase basket size by delivering offers to consumers from their Facebook page.