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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Parallax Scrolling 101: The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful

One of the hottest trends in website design is parallax scrolling. First employed by Ian Coyle on the Nike Better World site in 2011, this is a special scrolling technique wherein background images move by the camera – or in this case, your computer screen – more slowly than images in the foreground, thereby creating an illusion of depth in what is in reality a two-dimensional environment on your screen.

With its explosive popularity, you have likely seen this effect in use but may not have known exactly what it was or how parallax scrolling is reshaping the landscape of today’s Web. But just like any trend or technique, parallax scrolling is not the right fit for every site, and it does have a few drawbacks. To help you decide whether this is a bandwagon you should jump on, let’s dive in and take a look at parallax scrolling from every angle – the good, the bad and the beautiful.

The good

The obvious benefit of parallax scrolling is its undeniable visual wow factor. Even though this technique has become very popular of late, it is still not so overdone that it has become commonplace. This means that any site that uses this approach well will make a lasting impression on its visitors. In a world where every company and organization is looking for a way to stand out from the crowd, this can be a powerful advantage.

The bad

While the bold visual impact of parallax scrolling is hard to beat, there is a downside to all that eye-popping punch: due to the weight of these graphic-intensive designs, these sites generally take a bit longer to load. In our modern age of impatience, this could potentially be a deal-breaker. Many people will not wait more than a few seconds for your site to load, so if your awesome parallax scrolling means that you have a 20-second load time (which is not unheard of), that is a big problem.

The reason that parallax sites take longer to load is due to the size of the images that must be used to create this style of presentation. As a result, you must be cautious in how you implement this technique. It's easy to overdo it, thereby making your site so large and cumbersome that you’ll turn away customers who aren’t inclined to wait for the page and its images to load.

If you are considering incorporating a parallax effect on your site, be sure to consider performance and work with your web development team to ensure that all images are optimized so that your site not only looks great but also loads as quickly as possible.

The beautiful

Let’s look at a few examples of parallax scrolling that really amp up the wow factor:

Life Of Pi

The website for the movie Life of Pi illustrates the incredible journey of not only the characters in the film but also of the filmmakers who took on this challenging story.

Through the use of numerous still images taken from the film and pieced together, the implementation of the scrolling technique here gives the illusion of video content, providing an element of motion that really enhances the presentation.

Other effects used include images that start out black and white or as sketches and are colored in as you scroll down the page, as well as content that appears from the sides of the screen. In this way, the site is the perfect reflection of a film that relies heavily on visual effects, recreating that feeling of “movie magic” on the screen for its visitors.

Rimmel London

Rimmel London's site uses a traditional parallax effect, where images of the company's products appear in the foreground and scroll at a different rate than those in the background. This gives the site a sense of visual interest and perception of dimension that you simply would not get with flat, static photographs.

Parallax.js

This site, which is a sandbox aimed at web developers, has an incredibly complex and layered implementation of the parallax effect.

The scene depicted has multiple layers of ocean waves that move at different speeds and patterns along with a lighthouse that bobs up and down to give the illusion of an undulating seascape. For added effect, users on mobile devices equipped with a gyroscope can use the orientation of the device to manipulate the way the page moves and flows.

As this intricately layered demonstration of the parallax scrolling effect shows, with so many layers and axes of motion at your disposal, there is a mind-boggling array of possibilities for the kind of experience you could design for your visitors.

Make Your Money Matter

The purpose behind this website is to illustrate the difference between putting your money in a bank versus a credit union.

As you scroll down the page, a series of whimsical illustrations are layered into the page to tell the story of “where your money really goes” when you put it in a bank. In doing so, a topic that is fairly dry and serious becomes much more engaging and approachable through the strength of its presentation. The end result is much more powerful than it would be had the site’s owners simply published a flat page of content and bullet points relating this same information.

Sony

In much the same way as the site for Life of Pi, Sony uses a series of photographic images strung together to create the sensation that the visitor is watching a video in motion, as Sony’s products – ranging from a 4k television screen, speakers, a smartphone and more – appear to assemble themselves right before their very eyes.

This is a very cool presentation technique that far surpasses what traditional still photography alone could capture. Even a video of the product assembly process would not be nearly as engaging, because here, there is the added element of surrealism where the user’s scroll is what controls the build of the products.

TEDxGUC

The site for TedxGUC is far less intricate than others covered so far, but it’s still a great example of how parallax scrolling can deliver a narrative via the Web.

Using nothing but elementary illustrations and some well-written copy, this approach conveys its intended message much more effectively than it could through a few paragraphs of text alone. In fact, the strength of this site is in its simplicity, which goes to show that you do not need to be as over-the-top as the Life of Pi or Sony examples in order to use make effective use of the parallax scrolling technique. Sometimes, less is, in fact, more.

But does it convert?

The million dollar question is whether parallax scrolling has any measurable impact on the power of a website to convert leads and customers. While the results are still hazy on that front, a Purdue University study from 2013 did find that “although parallax scrolling enhanced certain aspects of the user experience, it did not necessarily improve the overall user experience.” This is, of course, just one attempt to evaluate a relatively new technique, but it is noteworthy.

That being said, this particular study did not take into account the memorability of the sites included. The ability of parallax scrolling sites to make a lasting impression is one of their key benefits – one which could theoretically have a very real effect on the site’s ability to capture and convert customers.

In summary

While the business benefits of parallax scrolling are yet to be fully determined, the visual wow factor of this technique is very appealing and is one of the main reasons it has become such a popular trend. In the end, like any element of web design and marketing, parallax scrolling is something that you and your trusted web development team will need to decide whether or not it is a fit for your brand and your website.

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Put Away the Smoke and Mirrors

“Smoke and mirrors.” “Dog and pony show.” “Image is everything.” These phrases, which are deeply embedded in the vernacular and philosophy of old-school marketing firms, may appear on the surface as nothing more than harmless – if hackneyed – corporate speak. However, these seemingly innocuous clichés actually betray one of traditional marketing's dirtiest secrets. Once the clever headlines, catchy taglines and glamorous images are stripped away, all that’s left at the core is fluff, spin, deception and the art of inventing meaning where there is none. Even they don’t believe their own hype. Yet these are the very same people to whom business owners and decision makers have entrusted their livelihood for decades. Who’s to say the interactions you have with your followers can’t be meaningful?At its heart, your business shares the same goal with every other: to grow, thrive and compete successfully in your market niche. In order to do this, you must engage your customers and build a community around your brand. With old marketing, the relationship between seller and consumer has always taken place at arm’s length, using traditional media channels that rely on flash and frequency, that require a tremendous investment to outshine and outspend the competition. However, who’s to say your relationships with your customers can’t be personal? Who’s to say the interactions you have with your followers can’t be meaningful? The answer: No one who values your success over their own bottom line.

Leading by example

We tend to take established brands for granted, assuming the secret to their success lies in their ability to pour unlimited resources into every available advertising medium to broadcast slick, highly polished messages of self-promotion. However, a closer look at some of today’s most recognizable names reveals a different story. Let’s start with Amazon. If you think about it, there is nothing inherently glamorous about an online bookstore. Yet Amazon has managed to create a following so pervasive that it catapulted from an upstart dot-com to one of the world’s most powerful e-commerce megabrands, all without ever relying on pricey TV and magazine ads. “Advertising is the tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.” How did they do it? The answer is not smoke and mirrors. They did not trick anyone into drinking the Amazon Kool-Aid. Rather they committed themselves and their budget to creating a better shopping experience by developing more intuitive technology, stronger distribution networks and more competitive shipping deals. These are genuine and distinct advantages from which their customers benefit each and every time they interact with the brand, thus solidifying Amazon’s reputation for ease of use, low prices and quality service. Another brand that has risen to the top of its category by flying in the face of traditional marketing wisdom is Geek Squad. As founder Robert Stephens explained at Advertising Age’s 2007 IDEA Conference, “Advertising is the tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.” Instead, by taking a creative approach to what he himself calls an innately “boring business,” he has transformed his one-man show into a corporation that employs more than 17,000 nationwide. In an interview with Inc. magazine, Stephens explained his low-budget strategy:

Without spending any money on marketing, we were able to get people talking about Geek Squad by tapping into themes and archetypes people already understood. We embraced the fact that we were geeks, and we dressed all of our employees like 1960s NASA technicians, since NASA is a symbol of problem solving, teamwork and impossible tasks…In our early years, we found that more than 90 percent of people found us through word of mouth.

In fact, he credits his initial lack of monetary resources with forcing him to work harder, to be more innovative, to dig deeper, to develop an original and authentic approach that has differentiated Geek Squad from all other competitors:

At the crossroads of marketing and meaning

So where do these two concepts intersect for you? It lies in the fundamentals. Your business – let alone your category – would not exist if there were not a legitimate need for your product or service among some segment of the population. There is a community out there that is receptive to your message, that is waiting to be wowed with a newer, better way of doing things. Furthermore, your company would not be here today if at some time someone somewhere hadn’t felt passionately enough about whatever it is you do to risk everything to get that company off the ground. It’s time to reignite that passion and convey it in a way that inspires others. Make a conscious decision to be better, to be different. Resolve to enhance your usefulness; commit yourself to unrelenting innovation; make sure you are delivering a premium experience to your customer; then tell people about it in a genuine and compelling way. And that’s where you’ll need help. But you don’t need just any old traditional agency; you need a partner who shares your belief in what you have to offer and your passion for why you do what you do better than anyone else. You need experts that can show you how to communicate this to your audience in a real and honest way, using available technologies to build community among your customers and keep them actively engaged to the point where they include you as part of their identity. When you have something meaningful to say, and you say it with conviction, people will listen. No smoke and mirrors required.

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