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.

Seven Sure-Fire SEO Killers

So you have your website and you’re trying to sell your product or service. That’s great. Now you desire to get some great page ranking. That’s even better! But the problem sets in when you realize you essentially have to remake your entire site because you did some things that are completely detrimental to your search engine optimization health. What are those things?

1. Text in graphics

What happens here is most times someone falls in love with a super neat font, or perhaps you don’t know much about creating a decent layout, so you just decide you want to put some information in a picture and call it a day. I totally get it’ it’s really easy, hassle-free and gets the job done, but what many fail to realize is this is absolutely killing your search engine optimization.

The problem here is not just that it’s a horrible idea, but the way search engines work and the way you are choosing to display information just does not work together. See, search engines pretty much scan your website text to see what it is your website is about. Unfortunately, search engines cannot scan pictures and figure out what it is you are talking about. This technique is fine, of course, if you’re not saying much but if you get in the habit of creating pictures with paragraphs of text on them (or even important headers), this is a bad idea.

2. Unfriendly file names

Every website needs to have some pictures. People love to visit a site and have something to visualize. However, when using pictures, you have to save your file names so that they make sense. Far too often, you may have a graphic or a picture file name that just looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo or isn’t really descriptive at all (i.e., “picture1.jpg”).

What you must understand is that friendly file names can actually help your SEO if you give it a fairly descriptive name. Of course you don’t want to overdo it (many say 45-60 characters is more than enough), but if it’s a picture of your product, the file name should reflect that.

3. Unfriendly URL’s

The previously mentioned principle remains the same for this concept. Sometimes people rarely take the time to actually name their inside pages. I’ve literally seen people with urls that are ‘www.mywebsite.com/insidepage2.html’ or ‘www.mywebsite.com/ab-co-XY1.php’. That’s not really helping you. Again, you want to make your url as simply descriptive as you can--nothing too long but concise and makes sense. If this your ‘About’ page, then name it that.

Also keep in mind, if you are using a content management system or blogging platform you want to make sure you have your friendly URLs turned on so they don’t look like a bunch of cryptic code.

4. Ignoring image “alt” tags

The reason you don’t have to be overly descriptive in your image file name is because you can do that by using the ‘alt’ tag. This tag pretty gives you an opportunity to describe what’s in the picture and what it’s supposed to do. Keep in mind many of our current search engines have the ability to search specifically for images. Friendly file names and good alt descriptions can make it realtively easy for your product or service picture to show up in an image search. Try to take advantage of this by utilizing this task.

It also helps with your regular SEO, because the search engine typically takes some of that into consideration when coming up with the relevancy of your website to a search query.

5. Splash pages

Honestly, in 2012, if it isn’t absolutely necessary, just avoid them. I know sometimes they are cool and sometimes it’s really nice to have something introduce your website, but if it isn’t absolutely necessary in the scheme of things, just let it go. The reason is because search engines take into account what is said on your very first page (index) when scanning your site. Most splash pages are just videos or pictures of some sort. If there’s absolutely nothing of use on it, then your site won’t rank very well.

6. Meta keywords

When creating and coding your site there is sometimes a little ‘meta’ tag that people like to put a bunch of keywords in to to try to give your page a better chance of getting a higher ranking. To be quite frank, this tag pretty much is useless now. Many search engines don’t use it as heavily weighted to determine the relevancy of your website to a query. Many years ago this may have been a factor but as of now, it isn’t really worth it.

7. Overdoing keyword density

You may have heard that you need to sprinkle your keywords all over your website or you need to make sure that at some point you refer back to your keywords some way or another. It’s definitely a good thing to keep in mind -- of course you want all your content to be as relevant as possible. But search engines are starting to take into account your keyword usage and density when determining how good your website is to a query. If you sprinkle your keywords around too much, there’s a chance a search engine can determine that you are spam site and are therefore irrelevant to any query.

This is one of those techniques that you have to be careful with because it is necessary but you cannot overdo it. The best bet is just to use a bit of common sense and try not to pile the keywords on.

Right from the Start: The Secrets to a Successful Website Redesign

Your website should be your number one salesman 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But if your site has lost its luster and isn’t performing as it should, a redesign might be just the right prescription to boost its ability to capture and convert new leads.

Redesign your website is an exciting prospect filled with so many possibilities. It is, quite literally, the dawn of a new day for your company’s web presence, but how and where do you start?

Here’s a website redesign road map that will put you on the track to success right from the start.

Start with your “wish list.”

Naturally, when you’re embarking on a website redesign project, your first inclination is to make an exhaustive list of all the features and functionality you want to incorporate in the new site.

Having a wish list is helpful, but clinging insistently to executing every single one of those items can be a recipe for a budget-busting project.

Go ahead and create your wish list, but once you’re done, the next step in the process is to put on your editor’s hat. Strike through every single feature that is not essential to success. Don’t be afraid to be aggressive in your editing. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

Keep only the mission-critical features that will create a better, more value-packed user experience. Shed the “nice-to-have” features that will appeal to only a very small sub‐segment of your audience or that represent a personal “pet project.” These will only clutter your site and make it harder for the majority of your customers to find what they need quickly and easily.

If you can maintain a critical, objective eye through this editing process, your wish list will be substantially reduced, and you will have a much more solid foundation for a successful project.

Fight the “now-or-never” mentality.

One of the obstacles you’ll face when trying to pare down your wish list is the thinking that if you don’t do something now, you won’t get the chance to do it again in the near future. After all, how often do you redesign your website?

Instead, take a phase-based approach to the project. With your long-term goals and objectives in mind, decide what you must have now and what can wait until your company and your customers’ needs have reached the next plateau.

By mapping out anticipated future iterations and additions at the outset, you can make sure that your new site is built with the underpinnings it needs to support later growth and expansion.

Also, by breaking your redesign project into phases, you can launch the first version more quickly and without blowing your entire budget. This will give you time to gather feedback on the site and shape your future development plans accordingly.

The responses you receive from your customers after your new site launches may reinforce your decision to shed certain unnecessary features, or you may discover that they’re asking for another feature you had not previously considered. By breaking your project into smaller phases, you can take action on this valuable feedback quickly, instead of waiting until the next big redesign project. In this way, you can show your customers that you’re listening to them and that you care deeply about what they have to say – a great way to continue to build customer loyalty.

So now that you have your wish list and your phase-based approach nailed down, what’s next? It’s time for the big “d” – design.

Never cut corners on design.

Many redesign projects center around the need for a new look and feel for the website. Maybe your site’s current design isn’t a good reflection of your brand, or perhaps your company has simply outgrown a site that was launched early on in its history. Or you may just feel that your site is tired and outdated and in desperate need of modernization.

Regardless of the reasons driving your redesign, creating a Class-A look and feel with a user experience to match is a critical, yet often undervalued, piece of your website redevelopment project.

Adding new features or functionality will be pointless if the look of the site or the experience it creates is not up to par. Success starts with great design, and quality design should never take a backseat to fancy bells and whistles.

Consider this scenario: Let’s say you have a website with an outdated look that’s lacking the helpful features your customers want. If you were to update it with a strong modernized design but include none of those new features, you would still realize some measure of success. You’d have an attractive new design and a quality user experience, and that alone is an improvement that you can then build upon in later phases. If, however, you go the opposite route by trying to shoehorn new features into a bad existing design, your site will still suffer from that outdated look and poor user experience, and your investment will be for naught.

Great features supported by bad design have a very steep hill to climb. By investing in good design early on, you’ll ensure that all future investment in the website – when you do add those extra features – will have the best chance for success instead of being forced to fight a losing battle against a poorly designed user interface.

Design with the future in mind.

Deploying a website that is streamlined, efficient and customer-focused is a great start. But the feedback you receive after launch and the desire to continually improve the site will ultimately drive what comes next – those subsequent phases that you have already planned for. To this end, you will need to make sure that the new design and platform will support future growth.

As you edit aggressively early on in this process, you should also continually ask yourself if the plans that you’re making will scale appropriately. How will the site grow with your company over the next 6 months? How about the next 12 or 24 months? How will this mesh with the future phases you have planned as well as the unexpected feedback you may get along the way?

Whether you are hiring a web development firm for your redesign project or are working with an in‐house team, ask them about the technologies that are being used on the new site, from HTML5 to CSS3 to responsive design to the content management system (CMS), and think about how those technologies will work for you today and tomorrow. When it comes to the foundation behind the scenes, never make a choice to save money in the short term that isn’t the best choice for the long term, or else you’ll ultimately end up shelling out a lot more money over time.

A successful website redesign project can start small and focused on critical elements, but to achieve long-term success, that streamlined approach must allow for future scalability so your website will grow with your company, evolve along with emerging technologies and continue to fuel your success.

Take the plunge.

There are many different ways to get from point A to point B when building a website, but regardless of the process you and your team follow, the fundamental principal of starting small and focused on critical elements for success and adding improvements over time is one that will never steer you wrong. Instead of trying to do everything at once, taking this approach will allow you to launch a new website that is a visual and functional improvement without getting bogged down by “nice-to-have” features that will ultimately add very little value but potentially cause very big headaches.

A great design bolstered by key usability features and an eye towards future growth and scalability are the keys to creating a website that will serve as a catalyst for the growth of your business today, tomorrow and beyond.