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.

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Power Points: 8 Tips for Creating Presentations That Sell

If the word “presentation” conjures thoughts of droning speeches and dreadful slideshows, you’re doing it wrong – and worse yet, wasting valuable opportunities to engage, convince and convert new customers. By following these eight tips, you can deliver more powerful, more memorable presentations that give your audience what they want in order to ultimately achieve the outcome you want.

1. Good tools do not good presentations make.

Today’s sophisticated presentation tools – from PowerPoint to Keynote to Google Docs – offer lots of bells and whistles. But don’t get so caught up in playing with all of the available options that you lose sight of your purpose. Whatever software or format you choose, slides are not a dumping ground for data or talking points. You don’t want your visual presentation competing with you for the attention of your audience. It’s there simply to amplify your key points, not duplicate them, so limit each slide to one single image or thought that reinforces what you’re saying. If you’re displaying a chart, graph or table, don’t leave it up to your audience to interpret the meaning of the numbers. Instead do the work of analyzing this data for them by making the title of your slide the main idea that you want them to take away (e.g., “Southeastern Region Exceeds Sales Goals” rather than “2012 Sales by Region”).

2. Don’t save the best for last.

In today’s digital age, attention spans are short. We’ve all been programmed to skim, scan, parse and move on. That’s why you can’t afford a long, drawn-out wind-up to ease into your presentation. Within the first three slides, you must convey to your audience what’s in it for them so they’re motivated to stay engaged with you. If you don’t come out swinging for the fences, they’ll quickly check out as their minds wander to something that’s more urgent in their own world, like their own list of impending to-dos and deadlines.

3. Know and serve your audience.

Let’s be clear: your presentation is not about you. It’s about your audience. You’re there to serve their needs, answer their questions and address their concerns. Because no two audiences are exactly alike, there truly is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all presentation. While the core of your presentation may remain relatively unchanged from one speaking engagement to the next, if you’re not shaping, tailoring and refining your message and delivery for the particular needs and interests of the audience in front of you, you’re doing a disservice to both them and you. That being said, the benefit of having a strong foundation in place and well-rehearsed is that you’ll be prepared to respond quickly to any opportunity that arises – no matter how tight the timeframe. For example, let’s say a conference planner calls you with a last-minute opening in their programming line-up. If you have your key points memorized and visual supports in place, an hour or so is all you’ll need to tweak your presentation, and you’ll be ready to take advantage of the chance to engage with a new audience without wrecking your nerves in the process.

4. Build trust first, last and always.

You can’t expect to convince anyone to do anything if they don’t believe in you. As a result, building trust with your audience is your first and most important objective. The task of establishing your credibility has much more to do with the intangibles of your presentation that what you say or what you put on screen.You must instill confidence with your visual presence, your body language and your demeanor. Be polished and professional from head to toe. Talk slowly and clearly, and don’t forget to breathe. Avoid mental placeholders like “um,” “uh” and “you know,” but don’t be afraid to pause when needed to transition between thoughts. No matter how nervous you might be on the inside, maintain good posture and steady eye contact with your audience from beginning to end. Always keep your composure even if things don’t go exactly as planned. Show that you respect attendees’ time and intelligence by providing real value and useful takeaway messages. Never, ever use jargon as a crutch to create the illusion of expertise. It’s much more important to be relatable to and easily understood by your audience.

5. Practice, practice, practice.

The art of public speaking is not one that comes naturally for most of us. That’s why preparedness is the key to being able to deliver your presentation with the polish and confidence you need to establish that all-important foundation of trust with your audience. Rehearse your presentation as much as possible, doing so in front of colleagues or other members of your team so they can offer feedback. Walk through every step from start to finish, just as you would on the day of, including setting up and using your digital presentation tools. Videotape your practice session. When you play it back, watch for any red flags that will undermine your credibility like verbal stumbling blocks, lack of eye contact, stiff body language, nervous fidgeting or lagging energy. Don’t forget to make contingency plans in case the situation throws you for a loop. For example, what if you arrive and there’s no way to project your presentation or your equipment malfunctions? Make sure you’re equally comfortable delivering your presentation with and without your visual aides.

6. Engage and energize.

Every presentation has the same core purpose: to motivate the audience to take a desired action. Just as with building trust, the secret of motivating an audience lies in the intangibles. Your PowerPoint presentation – no matter how beautiful and well-crafted it may be – is not going to inspire someone to take action. That’s your job. You must be energetic in your delivery. Passion is contagious, so make sure you let yours shine. If your audience senses that you are genuinely enthusiastic about your subject matter, they’ll be more invested in hearing what you have to say. This is another reason that practicing your presentation is so critical. You need to be able to feed off of and react to your audience. If your focus is wrapped up in the mechanics of your delivery, you won’t have the mental agility to be able to think on your feet. If your audience appears to be bored or confused, you must be able to shift gears to recapture their attention or deepen their understanding. Shake things up by giving them opportunities to interact with you and each other during your presentation. And don’t be afraid to take questions. If someone wants to know more, feed their curiosity!

7. Make it easy to take action.

You wouldn’t design an ad or a landing page or a direct mail campaign without a call to action. The same goes for your presentation. If the goal of your presentation is to motivate your audience to take action, make it clear what that action should be. Think carefully, though, about how you frame your request. The next step should be commensurate with the level of engagement and trust you’ve established with them. Will your audience be ready to sign on the dotted line and fork over their money to you at the end of your presentation? Probably not. So instead, focus your call to action on furthering your relationship with them. Encourage them to sign up for your e-newsletter or follow you on Twitter. Or invite them to schedule a complimentary one-on-one consultation session with you. As long as you can keep the conversation going, you’ll keep the door to future sales opportunities wide open.

8. Maximize your mileage.

No lie: creating a great presentation is a lot of work. The good news is that once you’ve honed and refined your presentation, there are lots of opportunities to get more mileage from it. First, it’s always a good idea to make your presentation available online. Sites like SlideShare, Prezi and SlideRocket allow you to create and host interactive presentations in the cloud and then embed them on your website or share via social media. You will need to create a version of your presentation specifically for this purpose, as your slides will need to be more content-rich in order to be able to stand on their own and convey your key points without the benefit of your verbal delivery. Second, if you’ve mastered your in-person presentation delivery, you can just as easily lead a webinar. All you need are a few additional technical elements such as a webcam and an account with a webinar hosting provider like GoToMeeting or WebEx, and you can expanded your reach from a room full of people to a limitless online auditorium. Here's one key difference to keep in mind, though. In a live presentation, you want to keep your audience focused on you and your words, so your slide content should be minimal. However, with webinars, your presence is limited to a disembodied voice coming through phone or computer speakers. To provide the best audience experience, you must design your slides and content in a way that is not only visually interesting but also helps attendees stay in sync with what you’re saying. Finally, keep your sales pitch in your pocket. Keep a core version of your presentation at the ready on your tablet and smartphone. That way, if an unexpected networking opportunity arises, you’ll be at the ready with good visual aides to complement your conversation. Your new acquaintance is more likely to remember the details having heard and seen your message, and you may improve your chances of gaining a new customer in the process.

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Requiem for the Flash Intro: Seven Dying Trends in Website Design

Thanks to the now ubiquitous #TBT (that’s “throwback Thursday” for those of you who don’t speak hashtag), every week we’re all treated to a cringe-inducing trip down memory lane that takes us on a tour of our most regrettable fashion choices, whether it’s the bad perms and acid-washed jeans we sported in the 80s, the grunge-era plaid shirts and Doc Martens of the 90s or the velour sweatsuits and Carrie Bradshaw-inspired nameplate necklaces we left behind in the early aughts. Just as in fashion, website design trends come and go. What’s popular one day is old news the next. And just as you wouldn’t wear shoulder pads and stirrup pants to a sales meeting, you don’t want your website to be an embarrassing amalgamation of passé design trends. After all, if your website looks dated, it won’t inspire confidence among prospective customers that you’re on top of your game – no matter what game it is that you’re playing. Here are seven once-popular design trends that are fading fast – and that you should purge from your website as soon as you can:

1. Flash intros

Once upon a time, everybody and their brother wanted a Flash intro to create a memorable first impression. These days, though, having a Flash intro is a recipe for disaster. First, in today’s era of mobile surfing, speed and simplicity win the day. Keep in mind, too, that Flash and iOS do not mix, so your site won’t even be accessible to users on Apple gadgets. Also, today’s visitor demands more control and fewer bells and whistles that only serve as obstacles to accomplishing their end goal.

2. Pop-over windows

As site owners became increasingly eager to turn their web presence into full-blown conversion engines, the pop-over window rose to popularity. As soon as a new visitor lands on the site, BAM! they are greeted with a request to complete a form to provide their contact information in exchange for a welcome discount offer or to follow the company on Facebook for future updates and promotions, thus giving the company all the ammunition they need to continue their engagement long after that visitor has moved on to other corners of the Web. But while these pop-overs are good for site owners (at least in theory), they are very disruptive for the user and provide roadblocks that only make it more difficult for them to accomplish what they originally came to the site to do. As a result, any value that might be gained in collecting the user’s data is quickly negated if that user has no interest in continuing their as a result of this negative first encounter. Thankfully, good UX is winning this battle, and the pop-over is falling quickly out of favor. Reality has set in that no one comes to a site for the express purpose of helping the site’s owner market to them, so it’s hardly the best way to lay a foundation for a successful long-term relationship. Instead of leading off the conversation with your survey request, Facebook follow prompt or current promotion, simply allow your visitors to dive right into the site to find the information they’re seeking or complete their desired task. Keep your mailing list sign-up and Facebook links in your site’s universal framework, and if you do your job in creating a positive experience for them, your visitors will willingly allow you to become a presence in their email inbox or their Facebook news feed all on their own. Read more: Deal-Breakers and Dead-Ends: Six Turn-Offs That Alienate Website Visitors

3. Animated billboards

Oversized, rotating slideshows have become a common fixture on home pages in recent years, largely because they provide a way to present several key messages to the visitor without requiring them to scroll or to click past the initial page. However, UX tests show that these animated presentations are not as effective as we’d like to think. While the initial message in the carousel often prompts a click, the effectiveness of subsequent messages in the loop drops dramatically because many users do not stick around to see all of the slides. Other users ignore these animated areas completely, perceiving them as banner advertisements that should be glossed over in search of more meaningful content. The billboard remains a popular design feature; however, the trend is growing toward featuring a singular strong message in this area combined with a striking visual image. Streamlining and simplifying allows this one key idea to come across loud and clear rather than being lost among a muddled array of messages that are presented indiscriminately in the hopes that one will result in the desired outcome.

4. Information overload

Continuing with the theme of reductionism, today’s most successful websites pare down the information presented on the home page in order to create a cleaner, more focused presentation. This is in stark contrast to the approach that many sites took for years, which was to stuff the home page with as much information as possible in the hopes that visitors would find whatever they might be looking for on that page without having to dig any deeper. The result is a page that is utterly lacking in direction; nothing is emphasized because everything is emphasized. In the end, instead of being guided intuitively toward the information they seek, users are driven away by an overwhelming mess of content that is not properly organized and prioritized. To avoid this pitfall, focus on only the most important information for visitors while providing easy pathways, such as search tools and user-friendly site navigation, to help them find the content that lies deeper in the site. This approach will ultimately yield a better experience for your users and therefore better results for your company.

5. Drop-down menus

For years, the drop-down menu has been the go-to solution for streamlining a site’s primary navigation options while providing easy access to secondary pages. But with the advent of touch-based devices, which do not have a hover state, drop-down menus no longer serve the needs of all users. The simple fact of the matter is that with the rapid growth of mobile Web use, you simply can’t afford to risk leaving these visitors stranded with no way to delve beyond your site’s home page. Instead, a better solution for modern websites is to feature secondary page navigation options along the top or side of the page within the relevant section of the primary navigation. Read more: 3 Simple Rules for Navigation That Will Boost Your Website’s Performance

6. Contact forms

The contact form has long been a staple of websites – so much so that it’s often used in place of providing other means of contacting a company, such as a phone number or email address. However, more and more, site owners are choosing to eliminate this form altogether in an effort to provide a more personal, service-driven experience. Instead of having a visitor’s first interaction with their company occur via a cold, faceless web form that goes to an anonymous recipient and assures no timeline for response, the company elects to provide only their phone number so that the customer’s needs can be addressed immediately and directly by a live human being. While contact forms are not likely to disappear completely anytime soon, what is going away is the practice of relying on these forms as the sole vehicle for communication with customers and prospects.

7. Third-person narratives

Your website should embody the voice and personality of your brand. As such, it simply makes no sense for the content to be written from a third-person perspective, as if it’s being read to the user by a distant omniscient narrator. Instead, writing in the first-person creates a softer, more approachable tone that puts a human face on your company. It’s the difference between saying, “At Sanford & Son Remodeling, their goal is to ensure your satisfaction.” and “At Sanford & Son Remodeling, our goal is to ensure your satisfaction.” Which one feels more authentic? More warm and personable?

Beyond keeping up with the Jonses

Remember: keeping pace with the latest trends in website design is more than skin-deep. It’s not about having more bells and whistles than your competition; it’s about providing the best experience for all users, no matter how or where they’re accessing your site. By staying ahead of the curve, you’ll ensure that your site continually evolves to meet the needs and expectations of users who are constantly adapting to new devices and technologies.

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