Implementing a loyalty program is a subtle message to your current and future customers that your business is not only interested in making money from every purchase, but also would like to benefit customers to maintain good relationships. Incentive programs can speed up the loyalty life cycle by encouraging year 1 or 2 customers to behave like the most profitable customers in year 10, but only if it is planned as part of a larger loyalty management business strategy and implementation. By rewarding recurring engagement, you will increase customer loyalty and grow your business.
Provide Free Samples that Consumers Actually WANT!
If a loyalty program offers large rewards, it helps promote the brand and significantly expands the customer base. You can eliminate the need for a traditional loyalty program by attracting new customers through the product itself, creating an amazing customer experience, and providing added benefits with every purchase. Additionally, significant rewards increase the lifetime value of customers to guarantee repeat purchases over a long period of time.
Focus on Promoting the Program
A customer loyalty program is a marketing strategy that rewards customers for making purchases and for ongoing engagement with a brand. Your presence in front of your audience and customers is not enough to have a thriving loyalty program. You also need to promote your loyalty program so that your customers understand and realize the benefits they get by joining it. Promote your program through store signage, verbal communication from employees, text message reminders, emails, and special discounts when they sign up! One example is how Starbucks promoted their text subscription by offering a BOGO deal for customers over a short period of time after signing up. Rewarding customers for their frequent interactions with your brand helps differentiate you from competitors and increases customer loyalty.
Create Community
A sustainable, consistent, and profitable partnership between customers and brands builds loyalty, which helps brands stand out and give them a competitive advantage. Loyalty card apps offer many opportunities for customer engagement and sharing positive experiences with others on behalf of your brand. Consumers want to hear from other consumers how they really FEEL about the product. When they share how much they love it, others will listen and try it out for themselves to join the network.
Use Loyalty Points
Awarding loyalty rewards to your customers based on points earned from their previous purchases will motivate them to participate and buy more. Loyalty points are so powerful because the stimulus is consistent and predictable, giving the client a reason to come back again and again. It also allows you to collect data to help you personalize their shopping experience by seeing what rewards customers are choosing. To improve loyalty program ROI and overall consumer retention, companies have expanded loyalty rewards to include social and behavioral behaviors, such as referral rewards and points for user-generated content and are trying to offer customers a more personalized service experience.
If you’re more expensive…Offer Incentives!
Sounds simple, right? Offering rewards and loyalty program benefits (such as free shipping, extended warranties, or tangible gifts) gives customers a reason to stay even when competitors have better prices. Members can redeem their reward points for gift cards or get discounts to buy other items in the store. For the holidays, the Cheesecake Factory gave free $25 gift cards for their restaurant for every $50 spent on gift cards. This encouraged customers to choose the Cheesecake Factory for their Christmas shopping while also getting an unexpected treat for themselves. Once you understand who your customers are and why they choose your brand, you’ll know what they want more from you.
Over the past decade, customer loyalty and rewards programs have proven to be an effective way to improve customer retention, increase customer lifetime value, provide great customer service, and increase brand loyalty.
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