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4 Best Practices to Augment your Digital Loyalty Program

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So you have a digital loyalty program. Now what? Just putting a program in place is not going to get your customers walking into the store to rack up their points. It is time to do something really exciting in your store. Make it easy is for new customers to find your business and your loyalty program. Make sure that your existing customers know that you are putting in an effort to make improvements to their experience.

Working with our merchant partners, we have realized one thing. There’s never a shortage of effort to improve — but often the hardest part is knowing where to start.

Below are 4 best practices to give you some direction and help you reach new heights with your digital loyalty program in 2016!

1. Give customers a reason to visit your store
Holding an event — especially if marketed and executed correctly — is a great opportunity to build relationships with both new and existing customers, and to showcase your digital loyalty program. Work to promote the event to your customers well in advance (up to a month before, depending on the scale of the event). If you have a larger space, collaborate with other local businesses by inviting them to exhibit at your store and represent their product or service offering.

Partnering with other businesses will bring in new faces and strengthen the bond of your shared community. You can add an extra buying incentive by including a coupon or special offer to check-ins made at the event. Spice things up with a raffle or giveaway — asking customers to check-in through your loyalty program to be entered to win. Grow your customer list!

2. Show customers you care by asking for feedback
Your customers want to feel special, and nothing makes them feel more special than you taking a moment to ask them for their opinions. Sending your customers a regular communication to encourage their feedback is critical to your evolving business success. It serves to remind them of your business, and you can use their feedback to optimize your business strategy.

Most customers react positively to an engagement seeking their insights, and a reach out for feedback could be the spark that rekindles an otherwise inactive customer relationship. Capitalize on the opportunity to ask them questions about their last experience, your customer service, your product or suite of offerings, your store layout, location and accessibility, pricing, etc and in the process remind them again about your loyalty program.

It’s important to remain in touch with your customer needs throughout the lifecycle of your business, and your digital loyalty platform provides you with creative ways to gain insights into how you could make changes for the better.

3. Use social to sell your loyalty program
Market your digital loyalty through your social media presence with visuals that represent the simplicity of your program and the inherent incentives that you offer.  Making sure that you have nice pinnable pictures that capture your loyalty offering can build a repository of your products on Pinterest. Add descriptive captions to all your photos, along with a link (when applicable) to the location of your business.

4. Make it easy for your loyalty program to be found online
Invest actively in a local marketing strategy and make sure that your website and email marketing are both mobile friendly. Make it easy for those searching for your business to find out that you have a loyalty program. Make sure your loyalty program is prominently mentioned in your listing on online local services, including Facebook Place Tips, Bing Places and Google My Business.

You should also ask your customers to mention your loyalty offering in their online reviews. Listings and positive reviews will drive traffic and awareness to your loyalty program, and in turn, into your store.

At AirLoop, we are committed to making 2016 your busiest and most successful year yet. Our custom digital loyalty platform can help you establish clear marketing goals through a streamlined workflow. Making your loyalty offering a core part of your marketing strategy will definitely help you raise your foot traffic!

How to create a loyalty program that your customers love?

Almost every brand seeking to build a unique relationship with its customers has a loyalty program. Available market data suggests that customers are signing up to access loyalty incentives, and then getting lost in a sea of rewards cards, punch cards and mobile apps. Below are four best practices that you can use to create a truly unique and appealing loyalty program:

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1. Link your rewards to your branding

Reward your customers with activities that connect them with your brand. For example, offer loyalty members additional points for choices that you as a brand really want to see in your customers. A great example is Walgreens in USA who have aligned “wellness and health” with their loyalty program and are offering additional points to their members for healthy choices.

2. Think beyond deals and discounts

Try and offer your customers incentives that make their brand experience simple and happy. For example, a surprise complimentary subscription to your “concierge services” upon reaching a certain reward status. Be creative in building loyalty offerings that make your customers a true stakeholder in your brand, and encourage them to become your brand champions.

3. Build on-going customer benefits through your data

The great advantage of having a loyalty program is the access that it gives you to your customer data. The data presents a great opportunity to learn more about your customers, and then use the understanding to optimize and enhance your customer’s experience. For example, you can optimize your offers based on customer behaviours so that your conversations with them are in line with their preferences.

4. Make loyalty a core part of your business modelling

Your loyalty program should never sit on the side of your core business processes, but it should be a core part of how you structure your business model. You should constantly strive to fuse your loyalty program with your customers experience at your location. Making loyalty a core part of your business also empowers employees to actively and enthusiastically on-board customers on to your loyalty platform.

True loyalty, at the end day, is not about rewards and dollars as it is about your customers relationship with your brand. Your loyalty program is your effort to recognize your best customers and to show them your gratitude for their commitment to their relationship with your brand.

Four best practices to keep in mind while setting up your loyalty points

1) Keep your rewards simple

Keep the relationship between your points and the tangible rewards as simple as possible. Complex and confusing structures are more of a headache than a reward. Keep the conversions simple and intuitive, something your customers can understand and appreciate with a quick glance.

2) Use a tier based system to encourage more visits

It is essential to find a balance between attainable and desirable rewards. A tier based points system that gives the customer an immediate incentive for the initial signup and then encourages more purchases is the best way to get your customer on-board. We recommend presenting small rewards as a base offering for being a part of your loyalty program, and then encouraging repeat visits and spending by increasing the value of the rewards as the customer moves up the loyalty ladder. This also helps solve the problem of too much time between purchase and redemption.

3) Plan your rewards around your customers desired values

Truly understanding your customer means understanding what they cherish and what drives their sense of worth. Depending on your business, your customers may find more value in non-monetary rewards, for example a reward that lets them “name their own drink for a month”. While any company can offer promotional coupons and discount codes if you can have your relate customers relate to your business in ways other than dollars and cents then you have a unique opportunity to connect with them.

4) Try make your rewards a fun game

Everyone loves a good game. Through a well thought-out point system, you can turn your loyalty program into a game to encourage repeat customers and to convert your most passionate customers into your brand ambassadors. The idea is to make the buying process both fun and engaging.

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