Going the Distance: Four Ways to Build a Better Customer Loyalty Program for Your Brand

It’s easy enough for a customer to join your loyalty program, especially when you’re offering an incentive such as discounts. All your customer has to do is give out some basic information, and voila! They’re in the fold, a brand new loyalty member with your company. From there, it’s happily ever after. You offer the perks; they stand solidly by you, bringing you their continued business. Simple. Or is it? In reality, just how many of those customers are act ively participating in your loyalty program? Do you know? Sure, loyalty program memberships are on the rise according to market research company eMarketer, having jumped 25 percent in the space of just two years. However, that figure may be a bit misleading. The truth is that, while loyalty program sign-ups may be more numerous, active participation in such programs is actually in decline. At the time of the study, the average US household had memberships in 29 loyalty programs; yet consumers were only active in 12 of those. That’s just 41 percent. And even that meager figure represents a drop of 2 percentage points per year over each of the preceding four years, according to a study by loyalty-marketing research company COLLOQUY.

When discounts just aren’t enough

So what’s a brand to do? How can you make your loyalty program worth your customer’s while—as well as your own? After all, gaining a new loyalty member doesn’t mean much if your customer isn’t actively participating in your program. Consider this: Does your customer loyalty program offer members anything different from what your competitors are offering? Chances are your program includes discounts. That’s a given. And what customer doesn’t appreciate a good discount? But when every other company out there is providing this staple benefit in comparable amounts, it becomes less and less likely that customers will remain loyal to any one particular brand. Frankly, it’s all too easy for customers to get lost in a sea of loyalty member discounts. They’re everywhere. In fact, just under half of internet users perceive that all rewards programs are alike, according to a 2015 eMarketer survey. The key to success, then, is to differentiate your business from the crowd. If you can offer your customers something unique and valuable beyond the usual discount, chances are they’ll be more likely to stick with your brand. Here’s some inspiration from companies who get it.

Virgin: Reward more purchases with more benefits.

That’s not to say you need to get rid of discounts entirely. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Customers still love a good discount. The goal is to be creative in terms of the loyalty perks you offer. Take the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, for example. As part of its loyalty program, the airline allows members to earn miles and tier points. Members are inducted at the Club Red tier, from which they can move up to Club Silver and then Club Gold. Here, it’s not just a discount. It’s status. And people respond to feeling important, elite. Still, even where the rewards themselves are concerned, Virgin is motivating loyalty customers with some pretty attractive offers. At the Club Red tier, members earn flight miles and receive discounts on rental cars, airport parking, hotels and holiday flights. But as members rise in tiers, they get even more. At the Club Silver tier, members earn 50 percent more points on flights, access to expedited check-in, and priority standby seating. And once they reach the top, Club Gold members receive double miles, priority boarding and access to exclusive clubhouses where they can get a drink or a massage before their flight. Now that’s some serious incentive to keep coming back for more. Discounts are still part of the equation – but they are designed with innovation and personal value in mind, elevating them to more than just savings.

Amazon Prime: Pay upfront and become a VIP.

What if your customers only had to pay a one-time upfront fee to get a year’s worth of substantial benefits? It may not sound like the smartest business idea at first glance. But take a closer look. Amazon Prime users pay a nominal $99 a year to gain free, two-day shipping on millions of products with no minimum purchase. And that’s just one benefit of going Prime. It’s true that Amazon loses $1-2 billion a year on Prime. This comes as no surprise given the incredible value the program offers. But get this: Amazon makes up for its losses in markedly higher transaction frequency. Specifically, Prime members spend an average of $1,500 a year on Amazon.com, compared with $625 spent by non-Prime users, a ccording to a 2015 report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Patagonia: Cater to customer values.

Sometimes, the draw for consumers isn’t saving money or getting a great deal. The eco-friendly outdoor clothing company Patagonia figured this out back in 2011, when it partnered with eBay to launch its Common Threads Initiative: a program that allows customers to resell their used Patagonia clothing via the company’s website. Why is this program important to customers? And how does it benefit Patagonia? The company’s brand embraces environmental and social responsibility, so it was only fitting that they create a platform for essentially recycling old clothing rather than merely throwing it away. The Common Threads Initiative helps Patagonia build a memorable brand and fierce loyalty by offering its customers a cause that aligns with deep personal values. OK, so their customers get to make a little money, too. Everybody wins.

American Airlines: Gamify your loyalty program.

If you’re going to offer your customers a loyalty program, why not make it f un? After all, engagement is key to building a strong relationship with your customer. And what better way to achieve that goal than making a game of it. American Airlines had this very thing in mind when it created its AAdvantage Passport Challenge following its merger with USAirways. The goal: find a new way to engage customers as big changes were underway. Using a custom Facebook application, American Airlines created a virtual passport to increase brand awareness while offering members a chance to earn bonus points. Customers earned these rewards through a variety of game-like activities, from answering trivia questions to tracking travel through a personalized dashboard. In the end, participants earned more than 70 percent more stamps than expected – and the airline saw a ROI of more than 500 percent. The takeaway: people like games.

Stand out from the crowd.

Your approach to your customer loyalty program should align with your overall marketing approach. Effective branding is about standing out, not blending it. Being memorable is key. To this end, keep in mind that loyalty programs are no longer a novelty. That means that yesterday’s strategies won’t work moving forward, so look for ways to rise above the noise, setting yourself apart from the cloying drone of countless other cookie-cutter programs.

Tune in to Everything

The greatest foe a writer must face isn’t actually writer’s block; it’s a much more nefarious enemy: “rut syndrome.” Every brand has its own voice, and every project has its own tone. But after you’ve thrown a few thousand words at something, it gets harder and harder to write anything original while staying within these established parameters.

Familiar phrases start to reappear with increasing regularity, and you may find yourself unopposed to using them again. “Tried and true” becomes “tired and clichéd.” Buzzwords turn into buzzkill. The walls of your rut begin to close in on you, and you get the feeling that your best work might lie behind you, at least in this particular field.

So how can you claw your way out of this rut while staying in your groove? By looking outward rather than trying to dig deeper into yourself. And by “outward,” I don’t mean industry blogs or field-related resources. Sure it’s important to stay informed, but often the fresh perspective that fuels a new direction in your writing will come from unexpected directions. The key is to turn your attention toward those unlikely sources – and let the creativity flow.

Living on “high-receive”

One of the creative sparks for this very article has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of years now. It’s an off-the-cuff bit of writing that appeared on the Facebook page of Fame Foundry’s chief architect, Kenneth Vuncannon. The title alone speaks volumes about why I enjoy working with Ken: “On creative design (and in stern defense of all creative people)”.

In this piece, Ken wrote, “Not even designers know where all the inspiration comes from, but they are the ones who sacrifice normal life and choose to live constantly on high-receive, subjecting their brains to everything in this world in the name of creativity.”

That bit about high-receive struck me at the time, and it remains with me still, informing my work process day in and day out. And here I was just casually spending five minutes on Ken’s page, looking at pictures and catching up – probably drawn to his profile by some quip that made me laugh.

Ken’s brief paragraph in praise of designers – “they are the ones” who draw inspiration from “everything in this world” – also serves as a great piece of advice for anyone wishing to challenge their own creativity: look outside yourself. Look everywhere, all the time. Be ready for that happy coincidence. Train your mind to make connections that can grow into your next great work.

The more you think like this, the more your ideas will begin to flow from moments that might otherwise slip by as ephemeral instances of random beauty or humor. And the greater the chance that something original can find its way into one of those dry assignments that threatens to drag you down into the rut.

Here are a few examples from my own efforts to stay tuned in to the greatness around us:

Crazy people

Here’s a piece that has stuck with me for some 20 years. I was at my grandmother’s for the weekend with the rest of my family, home from college, sometime in the early nineties. Grandma Whipkey’s was a fine place to visit, overflowing as it was with homemade cookies and cable TV – HBO to be specific. We were flipping through channels when I stopped for a few minutes on something called “Crazy People,” a movie starring Dudley Moore and Paul Reiser as advertising pitch men.

I hadn’t heard of the movie and had no interest in the premise. But the part that happened to be showing was Dudley Moore’s pitch for Volvo. The tag? “Volvo: Boxy but good.”

As a college kid only just discovering the verbal agility and wit of Monty Python, this bit struck me as funny. All these years later, I think of this clip often. There’s a bit right after it as well where Moore argues that he and his fellow execs should “level with the people.” Reiser’s reply is, “We’re in advertising. We can’t do that.”

It’s a sharp piece of satirical writing – one that serves as a great reminder that marketers can – and should – tell the truth.

A reverent – and irreverent – obituary

Here’s an opening line that has never before been used in an obituary: "If you're about to throw away an old pair of pantyhose, stop."

You read that right. But such a goofy first line couldn’t possibly be part of a well-written obituary, could it? Surely this is a misguided attempt at humor that falls as flat as a vulgar joke in church.

Wrong. This one, written by the family of Mary Agnes Mullaney, a Milwaukee native who recently passed away at 85, hits it out of the park. There isn’t a hint of typical dry obit tone, but the piece overflows with joy, grief, dignity and every other emotion that naturally occurs when a well-loved person passes away.

Take this passage, which recounts lessons to live by, as demonstrated by Mary the gentle firecracker:

“Go to a nursing home and kiss everyone. When you learn someone's name, share their patron saint's story and their feast day, so they can celebrate. Invite new friends to Thanksgiving dinner. If they are from another country and you have trouble understanding them, learn to ‘listen with an accent.’

Never say mean things about anybody; they are ‘poor souls to pray for.’

Put picky-eating children in the box at the bottom of the laundry chute, tell them they are hungry lions in a cage, and feed them veggies through the slats.”

The purpose of an obituary is to announce someone’s death and convey a few carefully culled facts about the life that was lived. This piece turns the conventions of this medium upside-down and, in doing so, transforms it into something every obituary should be: a very human, deeply powerful ode to grief and celebration.

This one inspires me to look again at any dry or unwelcome writing task set before me. There is always a new and different way to approach any assignment, no matter how seemingly routine.

Kids run roughshod through ruts

If you want a prime example of setting your brain to “high-receive,” my sincere hope is that there are children in your life. My wife and I have four kids, ages two, five, seven and nine. I call them the Popcorn Gang – they’re packed with energy and exploding all over the place with creativity (among other things).

One of my favorite bedtime storytelling techniques is to turn them loose on a basic comic book plot and let them fill in the fun bits. They are the crusaders for justice, and they choose their powers. My main responsibility is voicing a made-up villain (Rovoltin’ Molten is a favorite; he controls lava and maintains a sinister lair deep in a volcano) and subjecting the baddie and his minions to my kids’ incredible feats of bravery and might. My evil mastermind will try to take over the world; this much is certain. But make no mistake, he will be utterly defeated by the end of the tale.

It’s always a big gulp from the fire hose of originality. If I didn’t set limits on the numbers of powers, talking animal sidekicks and tricked out vehicles, the stories would last until dawn. One example among hundreds: I’ve never heard of a superhero who shot blue popcorn from his knuckles before, but darned if young Captain Abel didn’t thwart a whole battalion of lava soldiers with this devastating ability. They’ve come up with enough plots and powers over the years to populate a whole new superuniverse.

My daughter Evangeline, our youngest, will be three in a couple months. The other day she had this revelation for my wife while they cuddled up and looked out the window at a gorgeous late summer day:

“Mommy, you are the flower and I am the green grass. Cole is the raincloud and Abel is the raincloud and Gibson is the raincloud and Daddy is the sun. Grandpa is the blue sky and Grandma is the green grass with me.”

So yeah, that’s unquestionably my favorite thing of the week. I was amused to note that her brothers are the rainclouds, while bursting with joy over my status as the sun (all the while realizing that I’ll undoubtedly take a turn as a raincloud in 10 years or so).

Later on, because I spend a lot of time each day in the marketing world, I thought about what a great moment it would make in a campaign. Not a cynical moment designed to manipulate emotions. Not a too-cute, overdone moment that feels like neon unicorns prancing on cotton candy clouds. But a light, authentic moment that could find a natural fit with any number of family-oriented brands. I may never wind up using it, but into the hopper it goes.

Kids are at the heart of so many memorable ads, from Volkswagen’s Darth Vader Kid to AT&T’s recent series of ad-libbed interviews. And it’s not hard to understand why: Kids don’t know from ruts. You want a fresh perspective on something? Run it by a human under 10.

Storing up genius

Staying open to unlikely sources of inspiration doesn’t always come naturally, but there’s no reason why creativity and structure can’t go hand in hand.

Keep a file of intriguing items you run across. Bookmark video clips, images or articles that strike your fancy. If you have kids, pets or friends who do things that make you shake your head for any number of reasons, by all means fill a notebook with their quotes and stories.

By the way, if you don’t end up using anything in some capacity (you will, but let’s say you don’t), there is still a tremendous benefit to be found in a life spent deliberately looking outward in pursuit of the good stuff. In the end, it’s not just about helping yourself create better work and serve your clients better. That is simply an inevitable benefit to the habit of tuning into greatness. But you can be sure that as you expand your horizons, your work will be distinguished not by its similarity to other campaigns or articles in the same field but by the part that stands out as original. Your fresh voice and your sideways angle are what will set your writing apart and keep your creativity flying high, safe from the depths of the dreaded rut syndrome.

So here’s to all those disparate bits of stimulation that will make your work better, stronger and more inventive. Stay tuned – to everything – and be inspired.

8 Keys to a Lead-Catching LinkedIn Company Page

Given the mind-boggling speed of all things social media, it's easy to lose perspective on the passage of time. So try not to choke on your chai latte when you read these words: LinkedIn is now officially a decade old.

Yep. It launched in May of 2003 – when Mark Zuckerberg was still an unknown Harvard freshman. Facebook's predecessor MySpace, now having its midlife crisis and hanging out with rock stars, hadn't even been born. And Twitter was three or four years from hatching.

While logic would suggest that businesses would be the earliest adopters of any platform that’s founded on the concept of virtual networking, LinkedIn has been sluggish in giving brands a seat at the community table.

In the latter half of the 2000s, Facebook and Twitter quickly adapted for business users as marketers chased customers into those exploding communities. LinkedIn, however, didn't even allow companies the ability to post status updates until late 2011.

But in the last year and a half, LinkedIn's evolution has picked up the pace, and newly redesigned Company Pages were rolled out in September 2012, giving brands the ability to market products, recruit new talent and engage more directly with the greater community than ever before.

So if you've passed on LinkedIn to focus on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, now is the time to grow your presence on the network built for business. Here's what you need to know to build a killer LinkedIn Company Page that will capture new eyes and convert new leads:

1. Getting started

If you have employees on LinkedIn, you likely have a Company Page already. LinkedIn creates them automatically via data from a third-party service – probably Dun & Bradstreet, though it's difficult to tell. But be warned. If you have one of these robo-profiles, it's little more than a short description, some contact details and a link to your website, so you'd better take control.

The first step is to establish an admin (or several) with editing privileges. These individuals need to meet LinkedIn's basic requirements, which in summary are:

• They must be a current employee.
• They need a company email listed on their LinkedIn profile.
• The company's email domain must be unique (e.g., jdoe@example.com), Sorry, Gmail won't work.
• They must have filled out their personal profile to a reasonable extent.
• They must have some connections.

If for some reason, you don't have a Company Page, the setup process is pretty straightforward after meeting the above admin requirements. Here's how according to LinkedIn.

Click Companies near the top of your home page.

Click the Add a Company link in the upper right area of the page.

Enter your company's official name and your work email address.

Click Continue and enter your company information.

If the work email address you provide is an unconfirmed email address on your LinkedIn account, a message will be sent to that address. Follow the instructions in the message to confirm your email address and then use the instructions above to add the Company Page.

A red error message may appear if you have problems adding a Company Page.

A preview of your completed Company Page is not available. When you publish the page, it is live on our website.

2. Look like you mean business

Once you've moved in, it's time to hang your open-for-business shingle on the door.

First, upload a company logo. For now, logo size is severely limited and the display quality is poor. It seems that LinkedIn is downsampling logos – removing pixels, and therefore sharpness – to save file space and speed page loads. So focus on keeping logos simple and legible at small scale. For example, compare the readability of the first two automotive logos below with the latter two.

Next to your logo, the banner image on your home page is your primary way to distinguish your brand visually. It's an at-a-glance way to say something about your company, and that expression can take any form you like.

Apple's banner conveys in both layout and message the brand's commitment to minimalist, functional design.

Nike, with its global corporate footprint, had a lot of ground to cover to represent its extensive brand portfolio in such a small space.

MAQS Law Firm is described as "a modern law firm combining professionalism and tradition with creativity and efficiency." Their logo/banner combination definitely says "creativity and efficiency" with a look that's more design firm that law firm.

3. Give 'em something to talk about

Like Facebook, Twitter and most other social sites, the front-and-center feature of your Company Page is an update feed.

It's worth noting, however, that its functionality is little more than broadcast medium, like the news page of your website. As a company, you won't be able to reply to comments or "like" another LinkedIn user's updates. That kind of give-and-take engagement is reserved for real people, like your employees.

So with this limitation in mind, focus your updates on topics that seed conversations and get shared across the LinkedIn community. Post news about your organization or links, with commentary, to interesting content around the Web.

Utilize colleagues to engage further with followers and commenters. Employees are also a great way to syndicate your updates as they share content with personal networks.

Unfortunately, creating engagement this way is like attending a networking event with your hands tied behind your back – it's kinda tricky and what you say had better be really good.

4. Promote your products and services

Nowhere do Company Pages offer more flexibility or marketing power as in the Products & Services tab.

A dozen parameters are available for describing and promoting each product or service in your portfolio. There are basics like description, title and links as well as the ability to identify key contacts, a sidebar area for special promotions and one for YouTube video embeds.

In addition, a header image slider drives visitor traffic to specific services listed below or to external-pointing links, back to your website for example. (This is a great way to build inbound links for you SEO-ers out there.)

To get started, provide a short description of each product or service along with a thumbnail image and link to your website. Believe it or not, this will put you ahead of many of the organizations using LinkedIn Company Pages today.

Once you've got the basics in place, slider images, videos and promotions can turn your Products & Services page into a compelling sales lead tool.

5. Audience segmentation

LinkedIn has built into the Products & Services tab powerful audience segmentation filters that allow you tailor your Products tab to different types of visitors. These filtering options are mapped to data from member profiles, such as company size, job function, industry, seniority level and geography.

6. Promote your groups

If your organization manages one or more LinkedIn groups, be sure to promote them on your Company Page.

If not, groups are a great way to build out your corporate LinkedIn presence and drive engagement with customers or those in your industry. When creating a group, try to focus on a topic or industry niche that lets you position your brand as an authority or that serves users in a way that’s unique to your brand.

For example, a private user group exclusive to your customers would let you gather insights for product development, provide another customer service channel and directly address criticism within a relatively closed environment and in front of your other customers.

Whatever group you run or may eventually run, be sure to let people know about it on your Company Page.

7. Analytics

Built into Company Pages are some pretty handy analytics tools, which LinkedIn refers to as "Insights."

Accessed via the blue "Tools" button in the header of your Company Page, Insights provide a straightforward view into how users are engaging with your brand, including:

• Page views broken down by Company Page tabs
• Update engagement by impressions, clicks, likes and shares
• Visitor demographics by seniority level, industry, job function, geographic region and company size
• Follower identification and demographics, broken down by seniority level, industry, job function, geographic region and company size

If you're familiar with professional analytics tools, LinkedIn's Insights will seem pretty light. But because they are built on user data behind LinkedIn's membership wall, Insights provide detail about your company's LinkedIn engagement that other analytics suites cannot. Ignore Insights at your own peril.

8. A word on Career Pages

If you see a Careers tab on an organization's Company Page, it's because that business is using LinkedIn's paid Talent Solutions services.

Talent Solutions offer powerful recruiting tools that, like audience segmentation, utilize LinkedIn's vast user data to drive more qualified candidates into HR departments. More than half of LinkedIn's revenues come from Talent Solutions, so it makes sense that the social giant would invest heavily in this tool.

If your organization is paying for Talent Solutions, make sure your careers tab keeps those recruiting leads excited about the possibility of working for you. The features are too extensive to cover here, but that's okay. For the price tag of Talent Solutions, you should have access to someone at LinkedIn who can help get you started.

For some Careers Page inspiration, look to companies that are widely known as great places to work. Here are a few to get you started:

Starbucks Careers Page

Zappos Careers Page

Google Careers Page

Inspiration to go

Now that you know what goes into a killer Company Page on LinkedIn, all that's left is to go build your own.

We've avoided specific step-by-step instructions in this article because they are subject to change as features are added or updated. But don't worry. LinkedIn provides guidance notes within the editing areas of Company Pages as well as an extensive help center with setup guides, FAQs, user forums and more.

Still, sometimes there's nothing like seeing it all in action, so I'll leave you with this 90-second snapshot of LinkedIn Company Pages. And don't forget to follow Fame Foundry on LinkedIn for additional digital marketing insights and news.