Congratulations! Your loyalty and rewards program is all set up and ready to go, and you’re ready to start handing cards out. But before you start counting all that new business coming in, there’s one more thing you need to do. Marketing Your Rewards Program.
All reward programs increase business, but they don’t always reach their full potential. That’s often due to the lack of an effective marketing program. After all, if people don’t know about your program, how can they sign up?
There are many ways to spread the word and build engagement and membership within your program.
1. Point of Sale
Anywhere your customers go is a good place to promote your program. Window stickers, menus, shelves, on or beside cash registers, empty wall space – fill your business with announcements and reminders about your loyalty program to attract current customers.
2. Your Own Staff:
Your employees can be your best advocates. Train every employee to get the word out to every single customer. Make sure they understand the program structure, key benefits, and registration process. You could even provide them with a script and written answers to frequently asked questions. The onboarding and support team here at Ackroo is also available to provide ongoing program training to your employees.
3. Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective and cost-efficient methods of engaging your customers. In addition to your program launch announcement, you can use email to develop your customer relationship by communicating ongoing program and service reminders, special offers, loyalty and rewards balances and more.
For example, many of our automotive clients run monthly email campaigns that remind their customers when their service is due, how many reward dollars they’ve earned, and how much they can save on their next service visit or on their next vehicle purchase.
We can help with email campaigns! Ackroo has the expertise and experience to develop, execute and measure an effective email campaign for you. To get started, contact us here. For other ideas and tips, check out our 10 Best Practices for Email Marketing Campaigns.
4.Websites and Social Media
Your program should be mentioned prominently on the home page of your website. If possible, include a link in your main navigation menu that makes it easy for customers to sign up on the spot. You can also create additional hype by mentioning the program frequently on your social media feeds. Spread the word further by encouraging followers to like or share your posts with friends.
5.Direct Mail Marketing
In this digital world, direct mail marketing may seem a little old-fashioned. It shouldn’t be. There’s something about a real, physical piece of mail that gets noticed, opened and remembered. Ackroo can create, produce and distribute direct mail pieces that are hyper-targeted to your audience and get results: you can check out some examples of the different types of direct mail we do for our Automotive clients here.
6.Advocate Incentives
Rewarding customers for encouraging others to join your loyalty and rewards program is simple and inexpensive. This can be done by providing bonus rewards dollars or extra discounts for anyone that likes or shares your social media posts or gets a friend to sign up. Advocacy incentives are also a great way to build awareness and deepen your customer relationships.
You don’t need a large national advertising campaign to spread the word about your loyalty and rewards program, but you do need to actively promote it to both current and prospective customers. Use your imagination, have some fun, and contact us for more ideas!
