Beginner’s guide to creating a killer Customer Loyalty Program in 2020

Loyalty, Loyalty is something that every human needs in their life. Be it your partner, your pet, or your customers, and everyone hopes to get loyalty.

You can never get enough of loyalty. Keeping your customer satisfied is a tough task in this competitive world.  According to BoutiqueSetup loyal customers spend 67% more than newcomers. You need robust marketing strategies and innovative customer loyalty programs if you want to satisfy customers and increase your sales. As the competition is growing each day, keeping the customers engaged is becoming tougher.

Setting up an entrancing loyalty program is one engaging step a retailer can take to reach out to their loyal customers and encourage them to come back to your store.

What is a customer loyalty program?      

A loyalty program is a set of strategies that enables you to offer timely incentives to the customers based on their previous purchases from the store. A loyal customer will bring other customers to your store, as well. They might bring referrals through social sharing, which will benefit your business. Deliver an amazing customer experience should be your topmost priority because customer loyalty program is possible only if they get an excellent customer experience.

We will discuss some tips for creating killer customer loyalty programs in 2020. Let us begin.  

1. Do your research

Before the implementation begins, your team needs to do an in-depth analysis to execute a successful customer loyalty program. There are various customer loyalty programs; research will help you choose the one that perfectly suits your business.

Use customer data from a variety of sources such as website analytics, sales and inventory history, etc. to determine what would be most likely to respond too. Don’t forget to take into account customer satisfaction, behavior, and market trends.

Check out: Customer Loyalty Software

With proper and in-depth research, you can use the data to design customer loyalty products as well as improve your products and services.

2. Reward a variety of customer actions

Another way to show your commitment to loyalty programs is by rewarding a variety of customer actions. Customers, who watch product videos, engage in your mobile app, follow you on social media, and share your content are signs that they are engaging with your brand. You must reward these customers

Rewarding these customers will encourage them and keep them engaged in your business. Let them earn points for a variety of actions each week. This way, they will be engaged in your business and keep liking and sharing your content with others.

 3. Keep it simple

If you use complicated loyalty programs, many customers will not be able to understand it. It’s better to keep it simple and easily understandable so that all the customers can appreciate it without any difficulty. To make it simple, you can create a points system that is easy to track. Give out points to customers on their purchase, also explain to them how they can redeem those points, and when the points will expire, etc.

An ideal customer loyalty program is the one that is simple and easy to understand for the customers of all age groups.

4. Provide multiple opportunities for customers to enroll

If customers get rewards from buying from your eCommerce online store, share the points they could earn next to the price.

Other ways to provide opportunities to customers include promoting the program on social media and adding on-site notifications when customers make a purchase that earns them reward points. You can also pay the customers who have spent a lot to earn enough loyalty points free tickets to events and concerts. This will surely encourage them to return to your store again and again and also refer your store to others.

5. Market the program

Start investing in marketing so to make your customers aware of the loyalty program.  No matter how great your customer loyalty programs are, if your customers are not aware of it, it’s not going to work in your favor.  Make sure to create a marketing strategy that suits your business. Here is what you can do-

• Online Ads
• Social Media
• Newspaper
• Ads
• Send email newsletter
• Outdoor contents
• Press releases

6. Choose incentives carefully

When you decide the incentives for your loyalty program, you need to keep an eye on the behavior of your target customers. Try and think of options that make the incentives exclusive.

For example, in India, Starbucks has designed an effective loyalty program called ‘My Starbucks Rewards.’ There are many ways to enroll in the loyalty program. You can also think of something similar to this for your loyalty program. You can also give your customers one star for every purchase.

7. Stay connected with your customers

Staying in touch with your customers is crucial after creating a loyalty program. One of the best ways to stay in touch with customers is via email campaigns. Using email campaigns, you can inform and update your customers about renewals and exclusive deals for the selected customers. 

If needed, you can resend them the mail after some time to remind them of the same. This helps in building a positive impression of your brand.

Another great way of connecting well with your customers is by enabling live chat. If you have a live chat enabled on your website, then you can inform your customers by loyalty programs while you chat with them. It is a great way to stay connected with your customers.

Final Thoughts

Loyalty programs help in boosting profits and improve customer retention. It helps you keep your highly valued customers at close range and keep them coming back to your website. This means these loyalty programs have the power to make a significant impact on your business’ overall growth and sales.

Implement effective loyalty programs for your customers, manage them well, and you are ready to run your business smoothly and successfully for a long time.

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