How to Start Profiting From Your Customer Loyalty Program

How a Customer Loyalty Program can Make Profits

First, let’s see how a customer loyalty program can help companies make more profits. Customer retention has been one of the primary efforts for companies in different industries. The recent reports shine the light on why it’s so important –acquiring a new customer costs 5 to 25 more than meeting the needs and expectations of loyal customers.

A well-planned customer loyalty program is also a marketing effort. It can reach out to customers interested in additional benefits following the purchase, and can attract new customers and help capture new sales.

Finally, a customer loyalty program helps retain customers and encourages more repeat sales. It looks even more convincing in numbers – existing customers are 70% more likely to purchase again from the same brand.

Create an Effective Reward Program

To be effective, your customer loyalty program has to tackle the following three things:

• Customer’s needs, wants, and expectations.
• Specific customer loyalty program type.
• Customer behavior you want to reward.

Your loyalty program has to be attractive to customers for them to buy in on it – and you can’t just guess what they want. You’ll have to collect their personal info, past purchases, and interactions and track their behavior. This information will help you paint the picture of what your customers truly want in a program.

Choosing a specific customer loyalty program type, such as a customer loyalty card or tier-based program, is your next stop. Any type that reflects your customer expectations is potentially an effective reward program. Keep in mind, what work’s for your competitors doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work for you too.

Finally, choose which behavior you want to reward. The rule of thumb is to find interactions with customers that benefit your company the most and reward them.

Customer Loyalty Cards and Apps go a Long Way

The reward itself is often not enough to keep your customers coming back. There are few tricks to make your loyalty program even more attractive and motivate customers to play an active role in it. For instance, you can design and issue an attractive customer loyalty card. It will help your customers feel like they are part of this exclusive group with access to special rewards.

Don’t forget about the customers who are sick and tired of carrying the plastic with them at all times. To attract this group of customers, you should consider using a customer loyalty app. It improves the experience and makes using the program more convenient as customers only need to tap their phone screens a few times.

Boost Social Media Marketing Through Loyalty Programs

Instead of paying for social media marketing campaigns, you can leverage your social media following to do it for you. Did you know that loyalty programs can help you improve your social media presence, generate more followers, and reach even more people?

These programs are very popular nowadays. You can create an additional rewards program for customers who share, like, follow, or tag their friends in your posts. It’s a great way to boost social media marketing and attract new customers at the same time.

Create a Program With Customer Values in Mind

A lot of things can make people different. One of those things relevant to loyalty programs is what they value. If you want to start profiting from your loyalty program, you should do everything in your power to identify what your customers value.

Do your customers want to collect customer loyalty rewards to be able to redeem them down the line? Do they want to gain access to more attractive benefits the more items they purchase? Do they value challenges that offer redeemable rewards?

Find out what your customers value and tailor your program around it.

Remind People of Your Program

Modern customers live hectic lives. Even if they have your customer loyalty card in their wallets or your app installed on their phones, the chances are that they will forget about it. But since you have their contact information, you can kindly remind them about your program.

The goal is to find the least intrusive way to do it. It would be smart to leverage the ability to remind them only if you genuinely have something great to offer them. For instance, a last-minute sale with a considerable discount for loyal customers qualifies for it.

Make the Program Fun

Customer loyalty programs are not a brand new invention. Customers have seen it all. If you offer something that doesn’t pack fun, the chances are that the engagement rates will go down. Fortunately, there are ways to make your program more fun and engaging.

You can leverage gamification and implement some of its concepts into a program. For instance, customers are eligible for rewards only after they complete a challenge or collect a certain amount of points or badges.

Give Meaning to Your Program

Loyalty programs are compelling as they can help brands create a community of like-minded individuals more than happy to continue buying their products. To do it, you’ll have to create a program that helps you connect with the customers in a meaningful way.

For instance, your customer loyalty program can support a cause, promote a certain lifestyle, or emphasize specific values. These programs often put monetary benefits in the background.

Conclusion

All these tips can help you start profiting from your customer loyalty program. Given that your business and your target customers are unique, we will leave it up to you to decide which action to pursue. Whether you choose to use a customer loyalty card or app, the focus should be on making your program engaging, fun, valuable, and meaningful.