You’re officially ready to launch a customer loyalty program. Your loyalty rules are set, your staff is trained, and your customers are ready to start earning rewards! Now what?
Before signing onto your customer loyalty program, your customers want to know exactly what they’re signing up for.
Does your company offer special promotions on certain days i.e. double rewards days? Is there a cost to join your rewards program? Can your loyalty members expect to receive exclusive emails from your company? Do your customers receive any incentive for registering their rewards card? Does your company provide rewards for your members’ birthdays?
Your future loyalty members might have a few questions before they sign up! To make your customer’s loyalty transition as smooth as possible, here are 5 topics to consider when you’re launching your new loyalty program:
1. Is There a Cost to Sign up?
First, before joining your loyalty program, customers want to know exactly what your reward program entails.
If your staff are promoting your new customer loyalty program in-house, make sure they’re equipped to answer any questions that your customers might have such as any sign-up fees associated with joining your new rewards program.
In addition to having your staff knowledgeable about your rewards program, it’s a great idea to have marketing POP materials located in your store. Plus, Ackroo’s marketing specialists can customize a launch kit to help promote your new loyalty program. Having detailed in-store marketing material is a great tool that will help encourage your customers to join!
2. The Benefits of Joining A Loyalty Program
Your customers want to know the benefits of joining your rewards program:
- What percentage in loyalty rewards will your customers receive on their everyday purchases?
- Does your company have a double-rewards day?
- Can customers receive additional incentives for registering their card?
- Did you know that your company has access to all of these loyalty features?
If you want to promote a special rewards day on a specific day of the month, Ackroo can help you do that too! It’s important to highlight the exclusivity of your company’s rewards program in order to encourage your customers to join. Any details regarding your customized loyalty program, should be displayed on any POP material that you have in-store as well.
3. The Importance of Registering Loyalty Cards
Whether your POP material highlights the importance of members registering their loyalty cards or your staff speaks to the value of registering, it’s essential to encourage your new loyalty members to register! There are a few key reasons why registering member’s loyalty cards is important:
- To collect customer information, including: emails, addresses and birthdays
- In case a customer loses their loyalty card, you’ll have their information on file and be able to transfer any accumulated rewards and transfer them to a new card
- To be able to add customers to your loyalty member database and communicate any promotions or account balances via email
Plus, did you know that you can incentivize card registration?
Your company can incentivize members to register their cards by creating an automated promotion to fund newly registered members with $5.00 of promotional funds, just for signing up (the amount of promotional funds is entirely up to the merchant). For more information regarding how to set this up for your program click here.
In addition, your client success specialist can help you launch automated campaigns. All you need to do is reach out via clientsuccess@ackroo.com to get started.
You also have the ability to set an expiry date for any promotional funds. Setting an expiry date will encourage your reward members to visit your store quicker to redeem their promotional funds and also spend more money!
4. Opting-In for Email Communication
Email marketing is a great tool to use in order to communicate with your rewards members. Do you have any upcoming promotions or big sales that you want to promote?
Cheesecake Cafe Email Example
Providing your loyalty members with exclusive access to any upcoming specials should be a key part of your loyalty program. This is what will set your company apart. And don’t forget, email marketing is very successful if you have a database with a list of your customers’ names and emails including their opt-in approval.
So, you have a list of your customers including their permission to receive communication from your company, now what?
Ackroo’s marketing specialists can help you launch a customized email marketing campaign from design to copy! Our team will work with you to ensure that both your vision and brand is accurately represented in your emails.
Encouraging loyalty members to opt-in to email communication is a part of the registration process. Whether they register in-store or online, make sure your staff can speak to the importance of receiving emails from your company.
To learn more about email marketing and the importance of communicating with your loyalty members, check out Ackroo’s client, Cheesecake Café and their success thus far with using email marketing services.
5. Loyalty Members Want to Feel Special
How does your customer loyalty program stand out in comparison to some of your competitors? It’s important to do some research to discover what local competitors in your industry are offering their members.
Everyone has a favourite company that they choose to support for specific reasons, what do you want yours to be? Maybe you encourage your customers to share their birthday information upon registration because you’d like to provide them with a special reward!
How do you want your rewards program to stand out? It’s human nature to support companies that provide rewards in return, big or small! Customers want to feel special and they’ll support the companies that make them feel appreciated.
If your staff can successfully speak to the value of your new loyalty program, you have POP material that highlights exclusive features of your program, and your reward members are registering their cards, you will be set up to run an effective rewards program! You’ll begin to grow your database and through email marketing, your members will receive exclusive access to any upcoming promotions!
Pro Tip: If your company is active on social media, make sure you’re posting about the launch of your new loyalty program across all of your platforms. Utilizing social media is a great tool to target additional demographics.
