Offering customers a loyalty programme, because everyone else has one, will not fix any misalignment in your marketing mix.

A loyalty programme will also not succeed by providing the results you seek if you treat it as a short term sales campaign. Instead, it requires a long term strategic investment with the customer at the centre of your business strategy. Therefore, a loyalty programme alone does not create customer loyalty. However, when used to gather customer data, combined with powerful data analysis and innovative engagement strategies, it can become the key differentiating factor in a competitive market place.

In order to create a programme that stands out, it is therefore important to take into consideration how demographic factors such as age, income and gender, discussed in this paper, influence how you should build your loyalty strategy. 

Here are our tips for consideration when reviewing your customer loyalty  programme.

Understand your customer base:  You cannot be everything to everyone, but you can start to understand what your customers would find relevant and appealing by analysing data a lot better.  As an example your data may tell you that you are in fact servicing two, three or more distinct groups of customers... and every customer wants to feel special and be treated as if they were the most important asset to your brand, so ensure that you create a strategy that can service both ends of the scale.

Create differentiation:  Especially if you are running a national and sizeable programme you may be serving several distinct markets. Firstly, ensure your programme can service the top end of the base by rewarding them with 'money - can't - buy' experiential rewards. On the other hand, the lower end of the market should be afforded the opportunities to earn 'points' for other activities not only when transacting with your brand. Secondly, even just by considering gender you can  become more targeted by knowing that men are more interested in loyalty programmes that offer  'status' while women prefer a personalised experience.

Focus on engagement:  One of the fundamental mistakes loyalty programme owners make is the lack of communication to their members once they join the loyalty programme. You have gained permission to talk to your customers and created the opportunity to collect enormous amounts of valuable data. Use this to your advantage by creating meaningful and relevant engagement initiatives and communications across your customers' life cycle.

Be omni - present:  In order to be innovative and relevant in today's world, your programme will have to integrate all touch points your customers use to interact with you . These touch points include how and where they transact with you, and how they engage with you across in - store,  social, digital (mobile) as well as e-commerce (if applicable). Be sure to understand all the channels your customers use to interact with you and become 'omni - present'.

Get innovative:  In the cluttered loyalty landscape, we encourage you to be creative and add some fun to your loyalty programme by finding unique ways to recognise and reward your loyal customers. Especially when it comes to the younger market, loyalty programmes often do not create enough innovation. Give your customers the opportunity to earn points in different ways by going beyond earning for just transactional behaviour, e.g. reward for social media engagement with your brand, updating your details, referring a friend or taking part in surveys.

 

Article provided by Truth