Creating a loyalty program is not a difficult task. However, knowing what gives your customers maximum satisfaction and what motivates them to keep coming back to your business. When you get those basics right, you can create a loyalty program that addresses your customers’ ultimate needs and your business at the same time.
Brand loyalty is the primary aim of most different types of loyalty programs. Let this fact remain at the center of your planning while creating your program. Meanwhile, businesses and consumers have different goals and objectives. While buyers want to patronize a company that offers them products or services at a lower price and makes them feel esteemed, sellers also seek to build a large customer base that will keep patronizing.
So, how do you create a program that will achieve this balance? Here’s a step-by-step guide on creating a loyalty program that lasts with a strong following of loyal customers.
1. Choose a unique name
If you want to launch a successful loyalty program, you must get everything right, and it starts from the name you call it.
Indeed, your program’s name sets the tone for your customers, who are the potential members. It can be the reason a buyer chooses to join the program or sign up for another brand. Hence, you need to sit down and think deeply of a unique name that will sell your brand to buyers.
Your program’s name will communicate what your members stand to gain for joining the program. Also, emotion is one thing that can motivate customers to join your program. Hence, it’s good to find a name that can inspire a feeling that aligns your brand with your products or services.
Besides, what you call your loyalty and rewards program dramatically impacts the overall effectiveness of the scheme. Although most businesses undervalue what they call their loyalty program, it is crucial in establishing a strong relationship with the members.
2. Know your customers’ ultimate needs.
Typically, every loyalty marketing program’s goal is to gain customer loyalty, as the name implies. At the same time, customers cannot be loyal to a brand that cannot satisfy their needs. The same thing applies to your loyalty program.
One of the easiest ways to encourage customers to join your loyalty program is to design it to fit your customers’ needs. When you achieve this goal, you don’t need to persuade your customers before they sign up. Everybody wants to be in a place where he is valued. So are your customers too.
Now, how do you know your customers’ ultimate needs? It’s simple. Implement the following strategies to get the best result:
- Build robust customer contact information.
When you have decided to create a loyalty and reward program, thank you for coming is not the only thing you do when customers buy from your store. As your customers patronize, make sure you compile a contact list to have your existing customers’ details.
This step will help you create greater insight into how many customers frequently interact with your brand and why. It will also facilitate an easy launch of your loyalty marketing campaigns.
- Track your customer behaviors.
You have to study your customers’ behaviors to know what they want and when they want it. That will help you build a program that will satisfy them to the fullest.
- Take a multifaceted approach.
It is crucial to categorize your customers’ traits and preferences. It will help you have a multifaceted perspective of your diversified customers. When you get this right, you can be sure of having a program that will satisfy your customers with their uniqueness and diversities.
3. Choose your preferred loyalty program.
This step is one of the most crucial in the entire creating process. After you have known your customers’ ultimate needs, the next step is to choose the best type of loyalty and rewards programs that will motivate your customers to be loyal to you.
Here’s a list of the most common loyalty and rewards programs you can choose for your business.
- Points-based program: This type of program is the most common out there. In this point system, customers earn points for every purchase, which they can either use for future purchases or redeeming the points in other forms of reward.
- The tier-based program: in this type of program, customers will have to continue making more purchases to earn the required points to get to the next level—the higher the tier, the better the rewards.
- The paid program.
This program requires loyal customers to pay an annual fee to join the company’s VIP list. Customers on this list have access to several opportunities and outstanding rewards.
Other programs are the charity program, the partner program, the community program, the subscription program, etc.
4. Reward a variety of customer actions.
While creating your loyalty program, you must be bear in mind that loyalty marketing is not all about rewarding your customers only when they purchase. Many successful loyalty programs reward every action of their customers in favor of the business.
Your loyal customers should get rewards for sharing your posts, following your brand’s page, liking your posts, signing up for your emails, and more.
5. Offer a variety of rewards.
We’ve earlier discussed that customers have different needs and taste. So, you wouldn’t want to offer the same reward for all and expect all-around customers’ satisfaction. Ensure that you provide a wide variety of rewards to satisfy your esteemed customers’ various needs.
While some customers like to go on a trip, some may value a members-only event that separates them from other customers. However, this step will only be more straightforward if you understand your customers’ behaviors better.
6. Provide multiple opportunities for customers to enroll.
No matter how rewarding your loyalty program is, it is not complete if your customers find it difficult to join. You can create a mobile app that works on every mobile device to make it easy for your customers to access the program anywhere, anytime. You can also use loyalty cards, coupons, discounts, freebies, and more to keep it simple for your customers.
Loyalty and rewards programs are useful tools to build a large customer base that will keep coming back time after time. However, many loyalty programs failed because the organizers are ignorant of some of the abovementioned facts. Every successful loyalty program needs to focus on its customers’ needs and preferences.