Tips to make your customer loyalty platform more effective and engaging to increase sales and revenue
Over time, how the market consumes products and services and how brands attract consumers have gone through a massive shift. While the core remains the same, the relationship of sellers and buyers is more personal, malleable, and mutual now. Businesses are no longer selling one product for all. Instead, they spend time and effort to know customer preferences, interests, and patterns in detail. This is done to match and target their marketing campaigns. Consumers also respond and engage with brand communication more than ever with the advent of smartphones and the popularity of social media.
Brand Love
‘Brand love’ is something we see as an everyday happenstance even amongst celebrities, and customer loyalty programs are the best way to drive this relationship forward. Loyal customers are the ‘constants’ every business needs as acquiring new buyers is uncertain, costly, and challenging to retain. A slight increase in the number of loyal customers through the right customer loyalty platform can drastically improve the bottom line. Consumer marketing platforms provide the vital customer data that brands intelligently use to communicate and make customers purchase products more often.
Did you know, loyal customers are more likely to stick to a brand for at least five years, and 71% of them recommend the brand to family and friends? Let’s see how to make the best of your customer loyalty program software.
How To Make The Best Of Your Customer Loyalty Program Software
Make your loyalty program attractive beyond discounts- We cannot emphasize this enough! Discounts or special offers are just one aspect of consumer marketing platforms. The idea to join the program must be engaging and charming. The customer should feel good about joining the program for a purpose larger than the perk of paying less. Use something that helps distinguish your brand from your competitors. Use a catchy name, a currency, or a sense of meaning and purpose. Starbucks gives points to redeem at the next purchase, Nykaa has points for online shopping and Plum Goodness offers a special discount to customers who send empty product packaging for recycling. It is important to note that the benefits of a loyalty program need not always be commercial; they can also be social and environmental.
Reward. Reward. Reward– Don’t let this contradict what you read above. The key is in finding balance. Rewards are essential, if not everything, and rewards need not always be monetary. Experiential rewards like VIP events, personal shopping assistance, consultation, and limited editions can boost engagement. You can humanize your brand by appealing to the social side of your consumers through involvement in advocacy, awareness, relief, or charity work. Let your customers exchange their points in exchange for donations for a cause. Spread cheer and excitement by organizing contests for customers to win prizes and feel a connection with the brand.
Establish a human connection– Consumer marketing platforms establish a relationship between the brand and its consumers, and every relationship has a level of emotional involvement. Brands need to identify and nurture that connection to build their customer loyalty programs.
Be involved with customers every day- It is essential to think outside the traditional selling-buying cycle for businesses, especially if you believe discounts and offers alone don’t do justice to a customer data platform. Companies can attempt to know customers’ likes and dislikes, their social patterns and concerns, above and beyond consumption, and communicate accordingly if it is in the interest of brand values. Custom actions can also be taken to offer special wishlist offers, recycling, tracking, and more.
Offer Exclusivity: This is pretty much the gist of a customer loyalty program software. Customers expect exclusivity in exchange for loyalty, make it worth their dime. You can add an extra invitation for top spenders and valuable influencers in your tier system to make them privy to this status. Doing so would make the lower spenders crave to reach that level by spending more. Another way to make loyal customers feel privileged is by making a special interest group or an inner circle to get an exclusive preview of new products and collections, a practice often followed by luxury brands.
But before you decide the type of customer loyalty platform you wish to build, here are a few points you should keep in mind while planning the right customer loyalty program software.
Tips To Follow While Planning A Customer Data Platform
- Identify where your customers browse and purchase products. Improve your presence on those channels for better visibility and user experience.
- Map your customer data and recognize where it comes from. Are you making the most of the available customer data? Can you improve it in any way? What can you do differently by unifying customer data?
- Review your promotions and their response on various channels and align them with customer data.
- Observe what your customers do at leisure and find an opportunity in those activities to reward them.
- Take the relationship with your loyal customers to the next level. Ask them the cause they feel attached to and become a part of something more meaningful together.
In addition to the points mentioned above, one would also ensure the following:
Unified Customer Data
Customer Loyalty Program Software is a great way to collect to get collect vital customer data. But to make the most out of customer data, it should be unified across channels. If your customer loyalty program software, POS, CRM, and ESP have different data, unfortunately, it will lead to missed opportunities.
It is ideal to connect all channels for a single customer view of online, offline, and mobile interactions. This allows offline shopping assistants to know the kind of products a customer orders online and recommend accordingly. It also lets you enable customer profiles with marketing tools and CRM.
Mobile Wallet or e-Passes
More customers are now using digital wallets than ever. The same can be used to keep event passes, customer loyalty cards, coupons, and tickets. Digital cards are more likely to be used and do not risk misplacing or not carrying.
Technology
The use of technology can optimize the potential of customer loyalty programs significantly. NFC tags or loyalty experience kiosks can make customer loyalty profiles, contests, prizes, and interactions more accessible. Loyal customers will be delighted to get notifications of winning a prize directly on their smartphone screens at events, fairs, and outlets. The fashion industry can also use similar technology for virtual styling assistance.
Customer Loyalty Platforms can do much more than offering physical cards and discounts. Neurotags Customer Loyalty software helps businesses unify and strategize customer data to reward new consumer behavior in the most efficient manner.
Businesses can avail the benefits of a robust customer marketing platform regardless of their industry. Whether in healthcare, retail, fashion, electronics, or hospitality, customer loyalty programs can attract more business from existing customers and new customers through word-of-mouth publicity and great online reviews.
