Think of your customer loyalty program like dating. In this scenario, you can think of your customer relationships as ‘courting.’
Some customers may be swiftly swiping right. Others are popping by for a quick coffee date. And some, as the old-school saying goes, are ‘going steady’ with you. They are committed to you and your store, and they envision a future with you.
Now it’s time to take that commitment to the next level—let’s put a ring on it! You do that by creating an effective customer loyalty program.
A loyalty program is a section of your online marketing strategy that offers rewards, discounts, or other incentives to your customers. 75% of consumers say they favor companies that offer rewards. And it’s not just the big brands like Starbucks and Kohls. Smaller stores like your local coffee shop also offer loyalty acocunts.
In return, you attract more customers and gain repeat business. In fact, adding a loyalty program to an e-commerce platform can increase an average order quantity by 319%!
You also gain valuable data about your patrons, such as their demographics and the products they buy most. Here are ways to leverage that data and turn it into an ecommerce loyalty program.
1. Set up an ecommerce loyalty program the smart way
Your Square Point of Sale (POS) has the best tools for collecting the customer data you need to set up a loyalty program. Tour existing Square dashboard gathers your customer’s data during transactions so you can track rewards redeemed, average spend, and the number of visits.
The Square Loyalty program is easy for customers to access in a few simple steps:
When enrolling in your loyalty program, customers sign up at checkout by entering their phone numbers.
They receive an automated text message when they earn points or rewards.
You reward a customer directly through your Square POS by entering their phone number to apply the rewards.
2. Leveraging your customers’ data
Your data offers a complete view of your customers, but you must use it the right way. Inventory management tools like SKU IQ let you view data across your POS and eCommerce platform all within one source of truth. It provides up-to-date and accurate information on your customers’ behaviors. Steal back time and learn How to Save Time on Inventory Management with SKU IQ.
These are the most helpful data insights you should capitalize on:
Buyer Journey: How long a customer stays on your eCommerce site and the pages they visit the most.
Time: The days of the week and times of day your customers are shopping.
Frequency: How often your customers are buying repeat or new products.
3. Developing a tiered rewards program
A tiered loyalty program ranks customers into specific groups based on a set metric. The rewards increase in value as the customer moves up in rank. Tiered programs play on consumer psychology—that most of us are children at heart and expect to be rewarded for what we’ve done.
Here are some considerations for setting up this type of program:
Go beyond the usual Gold, Silver, and Bronze and get creative naming your membership levels. Think about your brand’s personality and what your customers would like.
Look at what you are offering at the various tiers and make sure there is enough sense of exclusivity so customers want to obtain a higher rank.
Some reward ideas to offer are early access to sales, private shopping hours, or free products.
4. Create meaningful rewards using your Square POS data
Knowing as much as you can about your customers helps you figure out the best reward to incentivize them. Look for patterns within your Square POS data and create a persona of what makes your customers tick. Use your conclusions to create rewards that would be most significant to them. For more information on this topic, check out How to Design Promos and Deals with Your Target Customer in Mind.
Here are some ways to make your rewards result in satisfied clientele:
Research your competitors who have successful rewards programs. You don’t want to mirror them, but you may be able to get some ideas.
Experiential rewards are popular because sometimes an experience is better than another item. You’ll create a memory that will probably inspire them to post about it on social media, furthering your marketing efforts!
Use the email addresses in your database to send personalized emails about special rewards rather than a mass group email.
The average consumer belongs to 14.8 loyalty programs but is only active in 6.7 of them. These figures relate to the customer dating analogy. You want your customers to not only swipe right on your loyalty program but also give them the right incentives, so they start exclusively dating you.
So take a good look at your dating profiles – err customer data – and see what you discover. You’ll build your rewards program with loyal customers and soon be living happily ever after.
