5 Ways to Boost Your Customer Loyalty Program

Implementing a customer loyalty program is a great way to keep your customers coming back to your business. Offering customers something that first-time and infrequent buyers don’t get makes your existing, loyal customers feel special and appreciated. But now that you’ve researched different rewards programs, implemented your favorite one, and set up a rewards structure your customers will get excited about, how do you get people to actually sign up? Use these tips to spruce up your rewards program and keep customers happy for years to come.

1. Tell Your Current Customers

No matter what your company does, keeping your current customer base happy (and making them even happier) is a priority. It will always be easier to keep them on your side than to go out and recruit strangers. So whether you’re just starting a loyalty program or trying to drum up renewed interest in an existing one, talk to your customers first!

Remind customers of the loyalty program you have in place and the rewards they can earn. Let them know what points or rewards they’ve already accrued, and even offer them incentives for using their points quickly.

2. Spread the Word

While your top priority is to keep your loyal customers satisfied, new customers need to be educated as well. Put a banner at the top of your front page, directing to a landing page that explains your rewards program in detail.

Use social media to tell your followers about your rewards program. You can even used targeted advertising to talk to your competitors’ customers. A good rewards program can make the difference in where people shop.

Finally, when your customers make a purchase, whether on your site, over the phone, or in person, make sure to remind them of your loyalty program and its benefits.

The Rule of 7 says that a customer needs to see a marketing message seven times before it sticks, so if your customers see multiple reminders of your rewards program, at every point along the purchasing funnel, they’re more likely to sign up.

3. Offer Signup and Referral Incentives

Offering your customers points for every dollar they spend is great, but it might not be enticing enough to grow your numbers the way you’d like. That’s where incentives come in.

Sign-up incentives usually take the form of getting a head start on your rewards. For example, Southwest offers 50,000 points on their Visa card if you spend $2000 within three months of signing up.

You can also offer short-term incentives for signing up, like a voucher for a free product, but be careful — short-term promos almost never lead to long-term lifts.

Referral incentives are a great way to get your customers to do your marketing for you. By offering existing customers a reward for recruiting new members, you grow your ranks, make your existing customers happy, and market your company’s customer loyalty program to new people who may not have been aware of it. You can even combine signup and referral incentives.

MeUndies, for example, offers members a $20 credit — good for roughly a free pair of underwear — if one of their referrals makes a purchase. And the new referral? They get 20% off. It’s a win-win!

4. Make it Personal

Your loyalty program isn’t just about rewarding your customers’ loyalty; it’s about showing your own. After all, the people who benefit the most from a loyalty program will be your best customers, and you want to show them that you appreciate their business.

Using customers’ real names is easy, essentially free, and adds a personal touch to checkout screens, emails, and social posts. Congratulate your customers on achieving higher tiers in your loyalty program and thank them personally when they celebrate an anniversary with your business.

This is also a great way to show your customers that giving you their info was worth their time. If you collect age information, send them something on their birthday! If you collect zip codes, give them location-specific deals. The more they feel appreciated, the more likely they are to spread the word.

5. Keep Them Interested

It’s not enough to set your customers up to earn points and then leave them to their own devices — you have to keep showing them the benefits on a continuous basis.

A great way to do that, is to remind them of your loyalty program on a per-transaction basis. Show them how many points they’ve accrued, and how much they can save if they redeem those points. If they’re approaching a specific tier of rewards, let them know that they’re close!

And if they’re not redeeming points, tell them what they’re earning! Receipts, either by email or in person, are a great way to keep customers up to date on their rewards and show them how their balance is growing.

Finally, use your rewards program as a discount system. By offering two, three, or five times the points per dollar on specific products or at specific times, you encourage people to stay engaged with the rewards program at no initial cost to yourself.

A customer loyalty program is a great way to keep your customers coming back to your business and referring their friends, but like anything else, it needs upkeep! The more work you put in to maintaining, promoting, and marketing your loyalty program, the better it will pay off in the form of a happy, loyal customer base.