August 13, 2015

Marketers Who Matter: Paul Lewis at VoucherCodes.co.uk

Paul Lewis is Senior Director of Marketing at VoucherCodes.co.uk and formerly Marketing Director at Hassle.com. We caught up with Paul to discuss changes in the voucher industry and the implications for retailers across the board

Since joining the VoucherCodes.co.uk team as Senior Director of Marketing, what’s been your main focus?

A number of areas. At VoucherCodes.co.uk, we’re very much focused on our customer and showing them relevant and personalised offers but I suppose another big emphasis has been on building a new leadership team, as well as developing new products. We’re also updating and launching our mobile app, and a number of different functionalities within mobile.

You’ve got experience in quite a range of industries. How has this shaped your views on digital marketing today?

My background is very start-up led. I started out at VC-backed credit card company Accucard. That experience got me into the world of finance for a number of years, working as part of an internal agency running marketing, and taught me aggressive acquisition digital marketing with a start-up background. I took this through a few different roles, from being the third member of staff at Ancestry.co.uk—growing their user base, launching international sites and building the team and structure needed to take it to where it is today—to spending four and a half years at Moo.com on very brand-led business, showing that brand can drive premium, awareness and engagement, even against larger challenger brands.

Learning from a brand in the heart of digital acquisition has put me in really good stead for my role at VoucherCodes.co.uk and what we’re looking to do now. We’re an innovative company, and we’ve got huge opportunities ahead.

How has the voucher codes industry changed over the past few years and what are the main challenges VoucherCodes.co.uk faces over the next 12 months?

The landscape has changed significantly for retailers. We work with brands like Marks & Spencer, Hotels.com and The Fragrance Shop, all of which have a large presence either online and/or offline. Customers are now shopping across desktop, mobile and app, rather than just in one place. Mobile accounts for over 50 per cent of our traffic but only one in four European retailers have a mobile-optimised site. And we’re here to connect the dots in that journey; we can drive footfall in-store from our mobile customers, and give brands a much clearer view of how that customer has interacted with them. We’re a marketing service to brands, which is something we’re very proud of.

VoucherCodes.co.uk has the ability to connect customers from a mobile journey to a desktop journey. Our ‘Save for Later’ feature allows users to save a brand they love (whether they’re on the app, mobile or desktop) so they can get alerts from that brand when they’ve got their next voucher or live sale. So if the customer taps it on the app or the desktop they can connect their journey and always get consistent, relevant, personalised information about brands they know and love.

Increased mobile traffic is a growing trend in the industry, and we’re out to help brands make the most of that.

Where does social media fit into VoucherCodes.co.uk’s marketing mix?

I feel that ‘social media’ is one of those antiquated terms that marketers across the world are using with varying degrees of purpose. To one business it might be an online customer service tool, and to another it might be a platform on which to push out content.

For me, social media is another way to engage with our customers and learn from them; it should be used to aid our efforts to personalise content and stay relevant. Facebook Connect can be used as another method of getting relevant offers to customers. Social media is also about community—we have almost eight million members in our email database, as well as an active community across social. That ongoing communication is something that we have to make the most of.

Can you talk a little more about the role of personalisation at VoucherCodes.co.uk?

Instead of having a separate offering for each platform, we replicate the experience across each device. We know that, when you like a brand, you’re interested in hearing about when the latest deal is going to be released. Even if very basic, this is very effective personalisation—allowing the customer to control the messages they see and receive.

On mobile, personalisation is about geolocation. At VoucherCodes.co.uk, you can essentially draw a map around an area or section (a shopping centre, for example) and we’ll send you relevant messages through a push notification to the app, based on the brands the user has indicated that they love. So if you’re walking down the high street, we can send you a message about a sale at Marks & Spencer, because you’ve told us before that you like that brand. That means we can drive footfall in-store from a mobile device. We might then send unique codes or some form of redemption that the user can show to the cashier.

It’s about creating an end-to-end journey that’s highly relevant and personalised: delivered at the right time, in the right place and in the right context.


Do you think that this strategy will eventually extend to wearables?

I’m not the tech expert but I’m definitely a tech lover. If you were to walk into my flat you’d see Garmin watches, heart rate monitors, pedometers and power meters for my pedals so, personally, I’d like to think that we’re at the start of a journey into wearables. In fact, our push notifications already show up on an Apple Watch if it’s connected to your mobile app so, when you’re out and about, you can receive our messages that way too.

It’s early days, but adopting technology will create more and more opportunities for marketers. Saying that, we need to think carefully about what technology is going to be relevant for a consumer, as opposed to that which is just a fad and could get annoying. There’s definitely a potential to ruin the customer experience if we get this wrong, and that’s something we’re definitely not out to do.

Which industry do you see as having the largest demand for voucher codes?

There are two parts to this answer. In terms of discount vouchers and sales and so on, there’s definitely ongoing demand across fashion, travel, homewares and restaurants. They’re the four pillars that get a lot of engagement, whether through email, mobile activity or in-store. I think the industry is potentially harder to identify. There are businesses out there disrupting the market for vouchers and discounts. One of my favourites is SportsPursuit, who do flash sales on sporting gear, selling it at a heavily discounted price from businesses and brands with overstock that needs to be got rid of quickly. As a niche business, they fit into the discounting world very well.

What’s the risk for brands that do not employ an effective voucher code strategy?

They’re really missing an opportunity for driving incremental sales or conversions. Most importantly, discount vouchers provide a stand-out opportunity to showcase a product, engaging customers who are increasingly less brand loyal, and reaching new audiences. Using geofencing, you can promote an action or an activity that you might otherwise have missed. At the same time, you need to understand where discounting fits into your business plans, whether it’s just when there’s overstock or when it’s Black Friday or Cyber Monday for example. I’d be very surprised if there were any businesses out there that believe 100 per cent that they shouldn’t have a voucher code strategy.

Discount vouchers have historically carried a bit of a social taboo, but now we’re in the age of the ‘savvy shopper’. Has this impacted the way you can communicate with customers?

VoucherCodes.co.uk has almost eight million subscribed customers. We’re very much an email-led business, and our customers continue to open and use our emails with all the 2,600 retailers and brands we work with. I think that alone shows there isn’t a taboo for discount codes and vouchers. What it does highlight is the reign of the ‘savvy shopper’. Users will find a product they like in-store, and then get straight on their mobile devices to see if they’re getting the best deal. I think that’s happening more and more and more, and we’re there to help customers and help convert those customers.

In a nutshell, it’s not impacted the way we communicate with our customers at all. In fact, it’s probably made retailers realise how they should be communicating with their customers. They need to have a voucher code strategy employed within the business, making sure they’re not missing out on opportunities to communicate with a large population that has become very discount hungry.

What’s next for VoucherCodes.co.uk?

We’re very much focused on mobile, and we know that the way we engage and talk to our customers has to change. Users are now able to access and browse media during what I term as ‘dead time’—the few minutes you spend walking to the tube station or the half hour bus journey into work. The normal email templates that you would send out and read on a desktop won’t work on a mobile now. Producing emails that are mobile focused seems quite a simple idea, but remember that only one in four retailers have a mobile-optimised site. That is a great deal of missed opportunities and missed revenue.

We’re here to help merchants who might not have the ability to make their own app, or the capabilities to run their own mobile show. It’s up to us as a brand to help them get over that barrier.

Interview by Estelle Hakner