Loyalty programs are a perfect way to make your customers come back to you over and over again. It might be something like a punch card on which you receive a stamp every time you get a coffee, and after you get 10, you receive one for free. Or it could be something like collecting loyalty points that you can exchange for items at the end of the promotional period. Whatever the mechanism is, loyalty programs improve customer experience and make people stick with your brands. It might even push your customers to buy more and more often, so they can collect the points they need to get a prize. But how can people take advantage of loyalty programs in times of a pandemic? By making it digital, of course. Let's see how you can do so.
What is a digital loyalty program?
As we mentioned, loyalty programs are a great way to keep your customers engaged with your brand, make more sales, and improve your revenue. Is a digital loyalty program different in any way? The digital loyalty program is the same at its core, but it is happening online.
Since a digital platform allows you much more than a regular paper punch card, digital loyalty programs have evolved and offer more to customs. They can be more interactive and personalized. So, the limitations that were an issue before and didn't allow many businesses to diversity their loyalty programs are now gone.
Now, you can give small rewards to your customers for almost anything. You can offer them a small bonus for signing up. Then, with some fun game-like elements, they can win more loyalty points or daily prizes, encourage them by giving them special offers for the purchase they made, and so many other options you can explore. Shortly put — the sky is the limit, and you can build your digital loyalty program in the way you like.
If you decide to offer the loyalty program on your site, a mobile application or both is entirely up to you. You should research the preferences of your users, which might give you a tip on which one would be more successful. By providing more opportunities to clients to interact with your program, you will undoubtedly increase their loyalty to your brand.
Taking your loyalty program digital
We already mentioned the first step: finding the best platform for your digital loyalty strategy. But let's take a deeper look at this and the rest of the steps on the way.
Creating an app or utilizing your website
Most businesses and brands already have websites, and they need to add another section dedicated to the loyalty program. Or building an application to complement this is also a popular choice. People spend a lot of time online on their computers and mobile phones, so catching their attention while they do so is very important.
You need to make your program look attractive so people would click on it and sign up. So make sure that you put the button in a visible place and maybe use the power of pop-ups to show your customers that you have one. To encourage them to join the loyalty program, you can offer them a small incentive like a 5% discount for their next purchase or start with some loyalty points already.
By making the design attractive and user-friendly, you will be sure that people will easily understand your loyalty program. They should be able to see the benefits, how they can take advance in the program, how they can take get points/discounts, and when they are eligible for the next level/new prize.
Once the person signs up, you are only halfway done. Loyalty programs are not something you can set up once and forget about it. This is why you should send reminders and personalized offers to customers. Keep reading to find out how.
Keep people engage
When having a digital loyalty program is only logical that you keep your customers engaged with the help of different digital marketing techniques. Sending them the right notifications in different channels is the key to keeping your customers coming back.
If you have an application, then send your customers regular push notifications. This way, whenever they are on their phone, they will definitely see that they have the chance now to use their points and exchange them for an item or discount code. Or you can tell them that there is a special event happening right now, and if they perform a purchase in the next X hours, they will win double points. In this way, you will give them a slight push to complete a purchase but receive something in return.
Another way to reach your customers is through email marketing. You can create different flows triggered by some variable and send them to the right segment of your customers. Let's say you create an email sequence for the people who recently joined your loyalty program in which you explain to them all the benefits and push them to perform the first action that will bring them some small prize. Or you can create a sequence for customers that have already engaged a couple of times with your loyalty program and reach a certain level. To them, you can explain the new benefits they can take advantage of and offer them a small incentive for being such a good customer. The most important thing about email marketing is personalizing the emails you send to each customer and making them stand out. We receive so many emails daily, so if your is not eye-grabbing, there is a chance that your customer will never open it.
Leverage social media
Social media is another place where you can easily communicate with your customers and keep them informed of anything around your digital loyalty program. You can regularly remind people of such a program and all the advantages that it brings. Why not even create a specific hashtag for your loyalty program?
Posting about special offers and events is also an excellent idea. You can create different types of content like text, images, videos, animations, or anything else you can imagine. And you can even organize small challenges that can bring them some additional prizes. The challenge can be for a post to be shared by the participants who can serve as free promotion for your loyalty program.
Wrapping up
As the name suggests, loyalty programs are great for making your customers happier and keeping them loyal. You will encourage them to return to your site or application and perform more purchases to reach a certain level in the loyalty program and receive rewards. They will appreciate that you are giving them something back. Making your loyalty program digital is the way to go because of ongoing limitations because of the pandemic and because people will be able to take part at any time from any place. Don't wait and create your own program.
