Managing Promo Codes in the On-Demand Economy : Part 8/8 of the User Journey Series

This is the last part of an 8 part series called ‘User Journey on an On-Demand Business Platform’

Promo codes are a great way to drive app downloads and increase traffic on your platform. For example, Users are often incentivized to sign up on the platform.

Types of promotions

Different kinds of promotional codes available are:

Discount codes : Promo codes are often alphanumeric strings that are entered during checkout for gaining some sort of discount on the value of the transaction. They are effectively used to drive people to take actions more quickly on a platform and are a great way to reward loyal customers.

Referral codes : Referral codes are unique codes generated for each user that incentivize sharing of the code to get other users on the platform. It aims to promote the platform through a peer-to-peer community wherein both the referee and referral recipient benefit from signing up on the platform.

Credits in wallets : To ensure stickiness to the platform, you can reward users not with discounts, but with cashback/credit to their accounts, often called wallets. These can be used as cash when making the next purchase.

Attributes of Promotional Codes

There are various attributes of a promotional code that need to be defined by you in order to ensure the codes are used fairly and effectively. As a platform owner, you can customize and measure the performance of each code in the backend or the admin panel that we build for you. Common attributes are:

Start Date and End Date : The duration for which the promo code is applicable can be set by specifying the start and end date of the campaign.

No. of Uses per User: The number of times a user is allowed to use a particular code on the platform can be set manually.

No. of Total Uses in the Campaign : If you don’t (or in addition to) specify the duration of the campaign, you can also put a cap on the number of times the code can be claimed in totality.

Maximum Discount: You can set the maximum amount that can be discounted in case the percentage discount is given.

Minimum Bill Amount: You can set the minimum bill amount to which the discount code can be applied.

Timezone and Location: You can set the time zones and locations where your promo code is applicable, or even specify if it’s global.

Promo Code Application in the User Journey

Promo Codes are commonly applied at the following stages in the user journey:

Signup: Referral codes are meant to be entered while the user is creating an account on the platform. The benefit, usually in the form of a cashback, is credited to the user’s account. (Know more about the Signup stage)

Scheduling: Before you are matched with a service provider, you are required to enter a promo code enabling you to get a discount on the transaction. (Know more about the Scheduling stage)

Payment: Discount Codes are entered just before or at the time when you are submitting your payment details. Upon validation, the code is successfully applied and the pricing is accordingly adjusted. (Know more about Payments)

Promotions or Incentives for Service Providers

Use of promotional codes is not restricted to customers. Service providers too can be rewarded, for example, when they bring other providers on the platform. Uber has a rider referral program that pays drivers when new drivers sign up on the platform using their referral code.

Managing Promo Codes at the backend

The backend provides you various options to extract value out of creating promo codes, apart from defining their attributes. Here are some common functionalities:

Creating a unique code for each user : Each user or set of users may be sent a unique code. This can be automatically generated by the system or can be defined by the admin.
Measuring the ROI of a campaign: You can measure the revenue brought in by a particular promo code campaign across different channels.
Integrating with Email: Promo codes can be emailed to each user as part of email marketing campaigns or in communication with a user. To read more about how interaction is facilitated on your platform, please see the Notifications module.

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