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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How to Pick a Fruitful Marketing Strategy: Three Juicy Takeaways from Walmart’s “Picked by Farmers" Campaign

Recently, Walmart has launched a series of video spots they call “Picked by Farmers, Guaranteed by Us,” featuring the farmers who grow and supply their produce. Each of these vignettes focuses on one individual farmer and one specific variety of fruit or vegetable. Additionally, each spot is centered around one of three themes: the personal story of the farmer and his experience working with Walmart (“Growers’ Stories”), helpful tips for how to select, store and prepare a particular type of produce (“Tips from the Farm”) or Walmart’s money-back guarantee. At first glance, these spots seem rather simplistic. There’s no trendy music, no rail-thin models indulging in the products, no Hollywood-worthy camera tricks or special effects. After all, we’re not selling iPads or BMWs here. But delve below the surface, and you’ll discover true marketing genius at work. Let’s look at the three core principles that make this campaign powerfully effective and how you can apply the same concepts to your own marketing strategy:

1. Serve before you sell.

Of course, these spots are designed to sell produce. As Walmart continues to take a bigger bite out of the grocery market with the aggressive expansion of its “Neighborhood Market” and “Walmart Express” concept stores throughout the country, they need to make sure that consumers think of them as their go-to destination not only for tires and diapers but also for tomatoes and dairy products. However, in the “Tips from the Farm” series, Walmart eschews using an overt sales message in favor of providing valuable, relevant information to their customers to help them make better buying decisions. For shoppers, there’s nothing more frustrating than spending their hard-earned dollars on fresh fruits and vegetables only to get home and find that their watermelon has no taste or their tomatoes have a mushy texture. With this understanding in mind, Walmart offers helpful tips on how to select, store and use these items to help their customers make the most of their grocery budgets (Don’t wash your strawberries until you’re ready to use them! Don’t put your tomatoes in the refrigerator! Pick an avocado with a firmness similar to the palm of your hand!). And who better to give this advice than the farmers who have dedicated their lives to understanding everything there is to know about these crops? To apply this principle to your own marketing strategy, think about your area of expertise and how you can put your inside knowledge to work to help your customers. For example, let’s say you own a home renovation business. Any homeowner who has undertaken a remodeling project knows how quickly all of the choices they must make can become overwhelming. Give these potential clients a hand by producing a series of videos that explain the advantages and disadvantages of different materials for countertops or flooring or showcase trends in lighting and other decorative fixtures. You’ll likely find that by dishing out a little free advice, you can earn major trust points with potential customers.

2. Be human.

One of the criticisms most often launched against Walmart is that it’s a big, unfeeling corporate giant with no face and no heart. But the Growers’ Stories spots show us that behind the Goliath, there are many Davids, and when we buy watermelons from Walmart, we’re actually buying them from third-generation farmer Jack Wallace in Edinburg, Texas. And we’re buying tomatoes from Scott Rush in Florida and strawberries from Mike Ferro in Oxnard, California. These are honest, hard-working Americans who care deeply about putting a quality product on your dinner table. The lesson here is this: Branding is important, always. But your company must be more than a brand. It must be human through and through. Whenever possible, you should remind your customers that they’re working with a team of people who are passionate about what they do, driven to exceed expectations and honestly apologetic if and when mistakes are made.

3. Counteract your brand’s vulnerabilities.

To sell anything – whether it’s a tomato or a tablet or a total kitchen remodel – you first must overcome the psychological objections of your customer. The current trend among foodies is the local food movement, which is focused on buying and using fresh, locally sourced ingredients. As cited previously, one of Walmart’s biggest branding challenges is their perception as the enemy of Main Street and the nemesis of the Mom-and-Pop. Therefore, Walmart is the antithesis of all things local, right? Not necessarily. As their Growers’ Story spot on tomatoes demonstrates, Walmart partners with small farmers around the country to distribute locally grown produce to nearby stores. And, in the end, if a customer is not satisfied with the quality of the produce, they can get their money back. The combined effect of these two messages is that Walmart has implicitly defended itself against a commonly held negative perception about its brand while negating any risk for customers in giving their products a try. What can you take away from this approach? Every brand has its weaknesses. While you don’t want to explicitly acknowledge these vulnerabilities, at every step along the way in the sales process, you should be aware of the red flags and concerns that might be giving your customer pause, and proactively counteract those inhibitions by providing  helpful (and true!) information that will help them make a confident buying decision.

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Bridging the Gap: How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Website

Your website is the home base for your company. It’s where you turn visitors into leads and prospects into paying customers.

Social media sites are outposts for your company. They’re where you go to find your customers and prospects and maintain an ongoing dialog with them in the places where they live online.

All too often, however, companies treat their web development and social media efforts as separate and distinct initiatives when, in fact, they should be working together seamlessly to promote the growth of your business.

Here’s how to maximize your online exposure by bridging the gap between your home base and social media outposts:

Start with the basics.

Make sure you have obvious links to every social media site where you maintain an active presence in a prominent location on your website. The header or footer is a good spot for these links because they then become a universal element of your website that every visitor will see no matter which page they might happen to land on first, last or in between.

You don’t have to use the standard logo for these social media sites, either. Instead, you can style these buttons in ways that reflect the look and feel of your own site.

Keep in mind, too, that the point of these links is to entice web visitors to “like” or follow you on these social media networks so that you can continue your conversation with them long after they’ve left your site. Therefore, it’s important that you include links only to those sites where you maintain an active presence. Don’t add a link to any site where you are not a frequent participant because there will be no incentive for that prospective customer to want to continue engaging with you on that platform.

It’s also smart to have these links open in a new tab so that you don’t risk losing your hard-earned visitor to other distractions on Facebook or Twitter.

Empower your advocates.

Today’s culture of the Web thrives on people finding great stuff and passing it along to others.

Make sure it’s easy for your customers and fans to share the stuff they like on your site with their own circles of friends and followers.

Again, use some discernment here and don’t include sharing options for every social site ever invented. Just pick a few key options like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ so that these buttons can be large enough to be easily seen.

Also, don’t plop these buttons on every page. Make sure they’re present on every product page and blog post. But what are the chances someone is really going to share your About or Contact page with the world?

Finally, pay attention to how links look when they’re shared. For example, Facebook’s API displays page titles and meta descriptions for shared links, so make sure these elements that live in the underpinnings of your site are formed strategically so that the shared content is presented in the most advantageous way for your brand.

Use social media to feed your website.

If you regularly use social media networks to keep your customers and prospects apprised of special promotions or events, you might consider plugging a Facebook Like Box or Twitter widget into your website.

However, don’t exercise this option just because it’s there and it’s trendy. Think carefully about whether the content you share on Facebook or Twitter actually pertains to and is appropriate for your average website visitor.

Also, while it’s almost always best for your blog to be an integral part of your own website, if you do maintain your blog on a third-party platform like Blogger or Tumblr, make sure you pull an RSS feed from your blog into your website so customers can discover your great content.

Get visual.

If you have a helpful how-to video or a series of photos from your latest event that you want to feature on your website, consider posting them to social sharing sites like YouTube or Flickr and embedding them in your site from there.

This approach makes your content accessible to the millions of users who search these social platforms for videos and images, making it that much easier for potential new customers to discover your website and your brand.

For example, Pink Cake Box, a gourmet cake shop located in New Jersey, reports that about 10 percent of their website traffic each month comes from Flickr, where they regularly post photos of unique cakes.

Just make sure when you post your photos or videos that you include a link back to your site in the description so users have a clear path to reach your home base.

Get social with service.

It’s standard practice to give your customers the option to contact your company via an email address or by submitting a form on your website.

However, many companies are now encouraging customers to get in touch via Twitter or Facebook as well.

There are several benefits to this approach. First, it gives the person who wants to reach you a quick, convenient way to do so. It also gives your company the opportunity to field both praise from happy customers and complaints from dissatisfied buyers in the public eye.

While you might be nervous about the idea of having complaints aired publicly, consider this: these people are going to be talking about you anyway. It’s best to give them an outlet to do so in a way that allows you to provide a positive resolution to the problem at-hand while demonstrating to the world that your company cares about your customers and is dedicated to providing the best possible experience for them.

If you go this route, just make sure that you’re prepared to monitor and reply to any communication directed at you via social media right away. If a question or complaint lingers unanswered, it will reflect poorly on your brand. Also ensure that anyone who is tasked with responding behalf of your brand is well trained in how to handle any imaginable scenario in a way that demonstrates strong values and a commitment to providing excellent customer service.

By bridging the gap between your activities on social media networks and your own website, you’ll create an even stronger promotion engine for your business that will help you capture and convert more customers.

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