Creating a digital loyalty rewards system requires significant planning and resources. The first step is to determine your goals. Ensure your loyalty program objectives align with your business’s values, customer needs, and wants. A digital rewards program can boost customer retention, build trust, increase revenue and market share, and foster brand recognition.
Create a Reward Program
You can still create a rewarding loyalty reward if your business is small and needs the budget. The key is to offer something intangible and unique to your brand that can’t be bought with money. It could be an experience, a product not for sale anywhere else, or exclusive pricing for your most expensive products or services.
You can also use your client and customer database to create a personalized digital loyalty card. Using the available data, you can create rewards based on the number of services a client has booked with you, their birthday, or even their gender!
Whenever you create a new reward program, please set up a tracking system that lets your clients know how close they are to earning their reward. It will help to keep them engaged and motivated! For example, you can send clients an automated email or text after every booking, letting them know they’re “X number” of bookings away from their next reward.
Build a Website
Determining its purpose is crucial in creating your digital loyalty reward system. You must understand your target market and how a loyalty card will help you reach them. Then, you can build a website that supports the goals of your rewards program.
Small business owners have long understood the broader strategic value of customer loyalty programs. They know that delivering increased value to loyal customers leads to more profitable business.
When you build your website, include social media share buttons so customers can quickly spread the word about your business. It may increase your site’s traffic and help you rank higher in search engine results. You can also add your business to local directories to increase your visibility.
Create a Mobile App
For most digital loyalty programs, customers interface with the program through a mobile app or website. Small businesses don’t necessarily need to develop their mobile apps (especially with the availability of helpful development platforms and software). Still, they do need to be able to meet their customers on the platform they use most often.
If you plan to develop a mobile app for your business, research existing apps to understand how they meet their audience’s needs. This research will help you determine which features to include in your app.
For example, a coffee shop loyalty mobile app collects information on customers’ go-to drinks, preferred locations, and overall buying habits. By collecting and centralizing this data, the company can offer personalized perks and communication to its customers. Your business can collect this data with your loyalty app or utilize the capabilities of your point-of-sale system. Using a mobile wallet pass also allows you to build a mobile loyalty card that your customers can swipe to receive rewards without needing an app.
Send Emails
Loyalty program emails can drive engagement and help customers stay connected to your brand. You can also use them to promote loyalty tiers and rewards and encourage customers to refer their friends and family to earn points.
For example, a company sends a welcome email to new subscribers, introducing the company’s loyalty program and describing the perks. This email also includes a link to the company’s website where users can see their points balance and learn more about how the loyalty program works.
Another way to get customers to engage with your loyalty program is by sending automated emails when they’re close to a reward tier. For instance, you could email them after a purchase or booking to remind them they’re “X number of bookings away from earning a reward.”
The content of loyalty emails should be personalized so that your customers feel connected to your brand. Using customer data to create targeted messages with testimonials and social proof builds trust and credibility with your audience.
Send Texts
With SMS loyalty programs, you can directly send customers rewards to their phones. It replaces the need for paper cards and “punch card” systems, making tracking customer behavior much more effortless.
Encourage customer referrals by attaching a unique reward to each new member, such as store credit or a special gift. It will help your program grow organically and increase engagement.
Keep your customers informed by regularly sending them updates on the status of their points, such as when they reach a milestone or when their rewards are about to expire. It will maintain interest in your program and make it more relevant to each customer’s experience with your business.
Be mindful of the frequency of these messages, and don’t overdo it. Sending too many texts could turn off customers, as they’ll be flooded with offers that don’t fit their preferences and needs. You can also segment your audience to determine the optimal communication schedule for each segment. For example, some customers might be OK with weekly updates, while others may prefer to receive a few monthly SMS messages.
