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.

Tweet, Snap, Share, Post, Pin: Five Creative Ways to Get Your Customers to Do Your Marketing For You

Today’s digital age is also the post-advertising era. Armed with access to nearly limitless data and information, customers have grown disengaged from commercial culture as we once knew it and disillusioned with canned corporate marketing messages.

This is especially true of the latest generation of consumers – the Millennials (aka Generation Y). Encompassing roughly 72 million young Americans, the oldest of whom are now reaching their mid-30s, the Millennials represents the most educated, diverse, technologically proficient generation ever in the U.S., with tremendous spending power that is expected to eclipse that of the Baby Boomers within the next three years.

Another hallmark of the Gen Yers is that they have a strong aversion to "push" marketing and prefer brands that are engaging and already embraced by their friends. According to Christine Hassler, author of 20 Something Manifesto, “Friends are the biggest influencers for Gen Y. If their friends have something and endorse it, that's all they need.”

All of this evidence points to an inescapable fact of doing business in today’s culture of the Web: nothing holds greater sway than word of mouth. If you want to grow – and especially if you want to capture the up-and-coming Millennial dollar – you need the help of your customers and fans.

However, these customers and fans aren’t simply sitting around, waiting at the edge of their seat for the opportunity to promote your products and services. It’s up to you to get the ball rolling by structuring campaigns that reach your customers where they live (i.e., social media platforms) and give them opportunities to share that tap into their motivations and fit naturally with their habits and lifestyle.

Here are five creative ways you can leverage social media to connect with your customers and get them to do your marketing for you:

1. Solicit their stories.

Sometimes spurring your evangelists to spring to action is as simple as asking them to. After all, who doesn’t love sharing stories about themselves?

Everyone can agree that medical supplies is hardly a highly glamorous field. However, Medtronic Diabetes, which develops and sells diabetes management products, has achieved a 2-to-1 return on investment for their entire social media program based on the success of their Share Your Story Facebook app.

Since launching the app in June 2013, nearly 300 customers have shared stories and photos using the app, and over 80% of users have opted to allow their photos and stories to be used by Medtronic Diabetes in other ways. To maximize the mileage they get from this great user-generated content, Medtronic is also proactive about contacting those who have shared their story to participate in photo shoots, video testimonials and guest blogging.

When Steve, a Facebook community member, posted a photo from his 2012 wedding using the app, Medtronic followed up with a request to guest post on their blog, “The Loop,” which the company started as a forum to foster discussion about living with diabetes. Steve happily complied, penning the article “Getting Hitched With Diabetes: The Groom’s Perspective,” which they reposted on their Facebook page.

Key to Medtronic’s success is that they are very specific in the framing of their request. When the company first launched its app, the prompt asked users to share “moments in your life of living well with your insulin pump or continuous glucose monitor,” but they found that the majority of participants would write only one or two lines. In March 2014, they retooled the wording to say, “Share with us your personal story about the pivotal moment you switched to the pump and CGM, and how insulin therapy has helped you focus on the wonders of life,” and they discovered that this more specific request elicited much more rich and detailed tales from their customers.

While you might wonder why Medtronic’s customers are so eager to share their stories, Amanda Sheldon, director of digital marketing and communications, explains: “We know our customers and know that they like to support each other. Our hope that social media would bring this all together was definitely met.”

2. Share the spotlight.

As the relentless onslaught of the selfie has shown us, social media is the ultimate “Look at me!” medium. Tap into your customers’ love of all things me-centric by creating a campaign founded in giving them the opportunity to shine a spotlight on themselves – and on your products in the process.

Clothing brand Free People has come up with an ingenious way to integrate customers' Instagram shots with its website. The company has begun attaching individualized hashtag information cards to its jeans. Customers are encouraged to take pictures of themselves in the pants, tag them either with #myfpdenim or more specific tags for different jean styles (such as #fpanklecrop for the 5 Pocket Ankle Crop or #fpsorbettiedye for Sorbet Tie Dye Jeans). These photos not only appear on Instagram but also on the relevant product’s page on the company's website (after being approved by site moderators, of course) in a special section called "Free People's Style Community."

This brilliant campaign succeeds on two levels. First, by designing a platform that turns their customers into models, Free People has created the ultimate indulgence for the selfie-aholic. Second, they overcome an obstacle that has plagued e-tailers since the concept was invented, which is giving shoppers the confidence to make a purchase without being able to see, feel and try on the product in person. But now, through the magic of Instagram and social sharing, Free People empowers potential buyers to see how a pair of jeans looks in real life. Win-win!

3. Give to get.

Sometimes, you need to be willing to give a little bit in return for the great promotional juice your customers are providing to you. Often brands use contests as a way to motivate fans to snap, share or post in exchange for the chance to win a prize.

However, prizes certainly aren’t the only way to incentivize your followers. An even better way is to share your time and expertise. For example, Zappos – a company that has built its reputation on providing exceptional customer service – has created a forward-thinking Instagram campaign that is the perfect marriage of its trademark service and customer engagement.

Capitalizing on the popular #OOTD (“outfit of the day”) hashtag – which has more than 23 million images attached to it – the online retailer has launched a pilot program for a personalized shopping service called NextOOTD. When a customer posts a selfie with the hashtag #nextOOTD, a Zappos stylist will comb through their Instagram history and respond with personalized shopping recommendations catered to their unique style.

This campaign is social media engagement at its very best. First, it’s easy for customers to participate in. By building on the already familiar #ootd hashtag, it’s a natural extension of a well established habit for Instagrammers. Second, it’s personalized: this concept of selfie shopping allows Zappos to interact with people like a human, not a brand, which is exactly what every company should aspire to do on social media. Finally – in perfect keeping with Zappos’ mission of delivering happiness – it’s a great way to surprise and delight their customers, especially the type of selfie-wielding fashionistas who are most apt to use the #ootd hashtag in the first place.

4. Bank on bloggers (and other influencers).

Here’s an interesting fact for you: Research has shown that one-fifth of the consumer population is composed of key influencers who impact the purchasing activities of 74 percent of the population.

Chief among these influencers are the legions of bloggers and vloggers who have masses of dedicated followers hanging on their every word. If you can put these prominent opinion-pushers in your corner, you can turn the power of word-of-mouth marketing up to 11.

Blue Apron is a new start-up subscription service that delivers meal kits – including pre-measured ingredients and recipe cards – in refrigerated boxes on a weekly basis to its members.

According to Ken Fox, one of the company’s investors, Blue Apron’s target market is comprised of “People who like to cook at home but don’t always have time for shopping,” and their hope is that these people “discover the ease of cooking with Blue Apron [then they] start to do it more often, and to get their friends and family members into it, too.”

And who could fit that profile better than mommy bloggers – specifically Katie Bower of the hugely popular blog Bower Power? Katie has nearly 15,000 followers on Facebook and more than 25,000 on Instagram, so needless to say, there is no lack of moms (and other busy women) who identify with her and look to her for great ideas and advice. And as it so happens, Katie also recently gave birth to her third son, so she has no lack of demands on her time.

For the price of a sponsored post, Blue Apron reached all of her followers in the form of a glowing review written with Katie’s trademark candor – along with a series of fun images depicting the process of receiving the box, unpacking its contents with her adorable boys, preparing the meals and enjoying the dinners together as a family.

The end result is a testimonial that is 100 percent authentic – and 100 percent more effective than anything the company could have said about itself in a perfectly polished ad campaign.

5. Create a marriage of mediums.

All of this talk of social media posting, hashtagging and sharing begs the question: how can you take advantage of your fans’ promotional activities to reach a broader audience that includes those who don’t follow you on these networks?

The answer: integrate your social media campaigns into your traditional marketing efforts. Case in point: Ben & Jerry’s wildly successful #CaptureEuphoria contest.

In 2012, Ben & Jerry’s tapped into its Instagram community (which at the time numbered 120,000+ strong) to cast the starts of its latest ad campaign. The company invited fans to post photos tagged #captureeuphoria that they felt depicted intense feelings of joy. From sunsets to wedding photos to cute dogs to beach scenes, these user-submitted snaps were collected into a special gallery on the company’s website.

One interesting thing you’ll notice about the contest: there was no requirement to feature the company’s products in the photos. Rather the idea was to associate the emotion of euphoria with the experience of eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream – very clever indeed.

At the conclusion of the contest, more than 25 shots were selected and featured in hyper-local media in the winners’ hometowns in ads that popped up in locales ranging from billboards to buses to neighborhood bars.

SEO the Right Way

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a term you’ve undoubtedly been introduced to, likely by spammy email solicitations or SEO “gurus” who promise to “fix” your site so that it rockets straight to the top of search engine results.

But is this the right approach? After all, search engines don’t buy your products or services – people do. As a result, it’s much more important to optimize your website so that it provides the best possible experience for human users, not for Google.

In this article, we’ll examine why optimizing for real people – and better serving the needs of your website visitors – will ultimately yield greater success in capturing and converting new customers. We’ll start by letting you in on a little secret that those so-called SEO “specialists” don’t want you to know: by optimizing for humans, you will also be optimizing for search engines.

Why the “SEO-Only” approach fails

Before we dive into the principles and benefits of optimizing for humans, let’s first take a look at what I call the “SEO-only” approach and why it often falls short of expectations.

Consider this scenario:

You’re in the market to purchase a certain product or service, so you type some relevant keywords into your search engine of choice. You click on the top result, and as the website loads in your browser window, the next words out of your mouth are, “what the heck is this?”

The site is a confusing mess, and there is no clear indication of what the company does, what sets them apart or what you steps you should take next to progress through the site. Frustrated, you quickly click your browser’s “back” button and select a different result from the list, hoping to land on a site that will give you information that is easy to understand and seems trustworthy.

How many times has this happened to you? If you’re like me, it happens all the time.

In the example above, the website was “optimized” for search engines, and it ranked favorably for key search phrases. This is good, as it means that when users are searching for the products or services the company offers, their website has a good chance of appearing on the first page of the search results and being clicked on. However, the effect of bringing this visitor to the website was rendered null and void because the poor user experience it offered drove them away just as quickly as they landed.

In other words, from an SEO standpoint, the site is successful, as it ranks high for the right keywords and phrases. From a business standpoint, however, the site is an abject failure. It did not convert a customer. Even worse, it drove that customer away and directly to the site of a competitor. More often than not, this is what will happen if you optimize for only for search engines and not for actual people.

The complete package

The reason the SEO-only approach does not work is because it focuses only on a single piece of the picture – achieving a high ranking.

As we’ve just seen, however, capturing a lead because of strong ranking but then losing their business due to a poorly designed website ultimately yields no benefit to your bottom line.

To truly succeed, your website needs much more than just favorable search engine placement. The complete packages includes:

• Quality design
• Intuitive user experience
• Relevant, useful and timely content
• Support for a variety of devices
• Findability

Quality design and intuitive user experience

These two items often go hand-in-hand, especially when we are talking about optimizing websites for humans. The value of top-notch design is often underestimated and seen as little more than “making things looks nice,” but quality design is about so much more than that.

A quality design is certainly one that is aesthetically appealing, but it is also one that is easy to use. The simple truth is that your customers – and potential customers – do not come to your website to admire its visual design like a work of art hanging in a gallery. They come to your site to accomplish a task, whether that is to gather information, book an appointment, make a purchase, etc. They come with a specific purpose, and a quality design is one that does not distract them from that goal. Instead, it helps them fulfill it.

The scenario we described earlier of a user visiting a website that ranked high in search results only to immediately abandon the site due to a confusing user experience is a great example of why the quality of the design is critical to your site’s success. It helps ensure that the site visitors you attract are ones you can convert into actual business.

Additionally, a great user experience is one that happy visitors will share with others through word of mouth or, perhaps, via links on social networks or blogs. A quality design and user experience can help turn your satisfied customers into promoters of your website. And as we will see in a moment, inbound links to your website can be a very valuable asset.

Relevant, useful and timely content

While an elegant design and refined user experience are very important aspects of optimizing your site for humans, great content is what gives your visitors a reason to come back time after time. Providing value-add resources that are relevant, useful and timely – and that your site visitors actually want – is how you optimize your web content for humans.

You may be proud of the awards your company has won, the great things that have been written about you, your leadership team’s accomplishments or your company’s charitable outreach efforts, but that’s probably not the content your audience is looking for. Therefore, if you’re organizing your site around showcasing this type of content, you are only serving your own needs, not your visitors’.

Optimizing your web content for your visitors means putting yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what they want to see, and then put that content front and center. All of that other stuff can still have a place on your site, but not at the expense of elevating the content your audience is actively looking for. That content must be given top priority.

You also need to make sure your content is useful and timely. If something is no longer relevant, remove it or relegate it to your archives and replace it with something that is new and interesting. Publishing a steady stream of fresh content is one of the best ways to encourage links back to your website from visitors who found that content useful.

What about inbound links?

One of the tried-and-true tactics of good search engine optimization is increasing your number of inbound links – that is, links from other sites that point to your own site.

Search engines treat these links as votes of approval for the quality and relevance of your site and factor the number of links you have established into their rankings calculation. Therefore, the more quality inbound links you have, the better your chances of climbing the rankings.

The practice of building inbound links is not an exercise in quantity over quality, however. Anyone claiming that they can get you “5,000 inbound links quickly!” is someone you should run away from – quickly! You don’t want these links, many of which come from link farms and other spammy websites. Search engines are smart enough to discern these type of no-quality links, which can actually send your ranking plummeting or, even worse, get your site blacklisted entirely.

What you want are high quality links from real people who have read your content and want to share it with others. Whether these links live on social media platforms, articles, blog posts or another site’s brochure pages, they are produced when a thinking human consumes your content and says, “Hey! That was really good. Other people will find this valuable, too. Let me link to this page.”

These links will both put your website in front of more people who are interested in the types of content you publish and help increase your search results rankings at the same time – a perfect example of how optimizing for humans simultaneously achieves the objective of optimizing for search engines.

Support for a variety of devices

Long gone are the days when the only way a user would view your website would be when sitting in front of a desktop computer with a large monitor.

Today, you can be assured that your website is being accessed via a staggering variety of devices with an array of different screen sizes. From handheld smartphones to tablets to laptop computers to the aforementioned desktops, your website must work well on a wide range of devices in order to be successful.

If you’ve ever searched for something on your phone, found a listing that looked promising and touched the link only to be presented with a website that was designed for a large screen only, you know what a painful experience that can be – that is, if you even bothered trying to use the site. Most visitors in this situation will just leave right away and look for another site that works well on their device. Again, the site in this scenario we’ve painted was optimized well for search, and it came up favorably. But yet again, the opportunity to convert was squandered due to the site’s poor user experience – in this case, the experience of using the site on a mobile device.

Once a visitor is gone, they are likely gone for good. Expecting them to come back to your site later when they are on a desktop computer where the site will perform better is wishful – and erroneous – thinking.

Optimizing for humans means making sure your website works well for them the first time they visit the site, regardless of the device they choose to do so with.

Findable websites

Yes, this is where the traditional SEO approach of creating high rankings for relevant search terms comes in.

When a searcher is looking for the products, services or information your site offers, you want that site to rank as high as possible in the search engine’s results to give it the best chance of being seen and clicked.

Achieving this high ranking is where most traditional SEO services end, however. As this article and the scenarios illustrated so far have shown, good rankings are just the start. What your site does with the traffic it captures through organic search is equally important – and this is where human optimization and all of the elements it encompasses (quality design, relevant content, device support, etc.) come into play.

Creating a “findable” website is about more than just attaining high search engine rankings, however. You want your website to be in front of someone whenever they are in need of your products or services.

This could mean a search engine result, but it could also mean a referral from a trusted friend or colleague. It could even mean a link on a social networking site or blog.

By optimizing for humans and presenting them with truly useful content within the framework of a design that is easy and enjoyable to use and that works well on any of the devices they may use to access the site, you’ll effectively encourage them to share your site with others.

This added exposure helps increase the findability of your website and your chances of having it land in front of real people who are actively looking for what you have to offer. This is the power of optimizing your website for humans.

Humans first, last and always

Optimizing your website for humans means making choices that will help them obtain the information they need from your website or perform the task they have set out to accomplish quickly, easily and without encountering any obstacles along the way.

It means putting the needs of real people first and foremost in all decisions that shape the design and content, with the understanding that by doing so, your site will be more appealing to those people, which can in turn make it more appealing to search engines, which will attract more people and links to the site, which will make it even more appealing to search engines, and so on and so forth...

It’s a cycle of success that starts with making sure that every element and every aspect of your site is carefully chosen and crafted to create an experience that is optimized for the human beings who will ultimately decide whether or not to purchase your products or services rather than just for the search engine algorithms that can only decide where your site ranks on a page.