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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10 One-of-a-Kind E-commerce Websites That Put Ordinary Sites to Shame

This collection of creative e-commerce websites includes those that take a unique approach to creating a storefront, and each are discussed in light of what makes their creative designs work so well.

Hopefully, you too can find some inspiration in the collection below to help you in your own e-commerce website designs. Which of these made a big impression on you?

Mom and Popcorn

This vintage website is a very unique experience in that it jumps off the page and makes you forget what decade you are really in. Although not the typical clean cut design of most popular e-commerce sites, it remains easy to use and bursts with creativity. It is very easy to find what you are looking for and the prices are prominent. You don't have to click around aimlessly to figure out what to do next. Five stars for Mom & Popcorn!

The Affair

The Affair is a UK based, offbeat clothing company that makes no apologies; neither for its darkness and morbid atmosphere, nor for its unique shopping design. Although simple and uncluttered, it is anything but standard. For one thing it has a discreet but impossible to miss shopping cart link in the corner. When an item is added to the cart, there is an animation of the selected item dropping into the shopping cart. This is a great touch because so often people click several times to be sure their selection was made and end up with too much in the cart at the end. With The Affair's unique concept, there is no confusion. Another useful feature is that each product's thumbnail offers a 360 degree view so you can examine it from all angles. It's these details that make all the difference.

Storenvy

Storenvy is ingenious, both in concept and in execution. It takes social networking, Etsy, and Pinterest and combines them all into one with an interface as easy to use as Blogspot. It allows users to create their own store to sell stuff, or to buy by browsing hundreds of items from different sellers at once. It is able to pack a lot of information and products into a small space without getting cluttered or confusing. It comes with a built-in store creation wizard to make it super easy to get out there and sell your goodies. I only wish I had thought of it first!

Saddleback

Saddleback is a beautifully and meticulously designed website that sells all types of leather products. Every element of the site contributes to its design, which is a breath of fresh air from other designs that can be weighty and cluttered, even if nice looking. The attention to detail is what makes this rich site still completely practical and usable. One particularly nice touch is that it includes a list of the sites of their business rivals, making it easy to see that Saddleback is the complete package.

Heartbreaker Fashion

Heartbreaker has a pleasant design with a good use of patterns and textures, which is what makes it different from other creative e-commerce websites. The trend has been to avoid patterns because they can distract shoppers from the product. When done right, however, it can really enhance the store front. Heartbreaker also has a handy shopping cart box in the footer of the site as well as the top. Even though it breaks the mold, it is still very user friendly, and even stronger for it.

Oi Polloi

Oi Polloi is a retro site that sells clothes and footwear. It is surprising to find that it does not have a shopping cart immediately available - only once an item is selected does a shopping cart (here called a "Basket") descend as an overlay to the site, showing exactly what you bought, what size, and how much it is, as well as a subtotal. So there is not a separate page for the checkout, which is quite efficient in my opinion. Never be afraid to reinvent the wheel!

A Modern Eden

A Modern Eden sells prints, decals, and stuffed animals with strange angular designs. It makes use of trendy colors, and where normally the bright green background would be tacky or distracting, in this usage it is not only appropriate but adds greatly to the fun and feel of the site. The ribbon highlighting the shopping basket icon is a very nice touch as well.

Patrick Ervell

Patrik Ervell sells fashionable men's clothing with a really cool twist. Where expensive men's clothes can often appear stiff or uncomfortable, this site helps guys envision themselves wearing the clothing, with use of live moving models with every product! Normally this is a huge no-no. Animations can quickly become a very bad idea, especially if there is more than one moving item per page. But Patrik Ervell accomplishes it beautifully, with a sterile white background and simple, concise text only interspersed where necessary.

Marie Catrib's

Marie Catrib's uses vivid pastel colors; friendly, bold text; and interesting dotted lines and patterns to make the pastry and bread products come alive. Some unique elements include the ability to search by vegan or gluten-free, a toggle button to hide half the website to focus on browsing, most information in the footer, and having ALL the offered products on the home page of the site. Simple, easy to use, and captivating.

Brand Neusense

Brand Neusense breaks a lot of rules by being too crowded, having too many colors, and incorporating too many animations - yet, somehow it all works. First of all, the models look like real people, not - for lack of a better word - models. Even more so, though, this creative e-commerce website stands out because the homepage focuses more on the various brands it sells and on ads than it does on its product. It is designed thoughtfully for its target market, and that's all you can ask of a web designer.

So whether you have an upcoming creative e-commerce website design project coming up or you need to revamp your e-commerce site design, use the examples above in your decisions. Doing your research and noting what others do right (or wrong) is one of the best ways to create a website that puts ordinary to shame.

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When Less is More: An Introduction to Minimalist Website Design

Minimalism is a trend that garners a lot of debate and discussion in the website design community. As a result, chances are good that you’ve heard of minimalist design and seen its principles in practice on sites that you visit day in and day out. But what exactly is minimalist design? And is it the right choice for your site?

Minimalism defined

In website design, minimalism can easily be construed as plain, lackluster or easy to accomplish. However, that is quite far from the truth. To the contrary, minimalism is a philosophy of web design that strives to eliminate all unessential features and elements in order to enhance usability by providing a clean, streamlined browsing experience that is absent of unnecessary distractions and clutter.

Focus

Every successful minimalist design starts with a crystal-clear vision of the purpose of the site and the key messages it needs to convey. Before any design choices are made, it’s critical to outline the goals and content of the site. This requires determining what information is most vital to visitors and arranging it in order of significance. You might actually be amazed to discover how little information is actually required to help users make decisions or accomplish their goals.

Typography

Because minimalist design is reduced to only its most essential visual elements, the site’s content takes center stage. As a result, typography is key to capturing the user’s attention. The choice and usage of typefaces in minimal design is critical to creating a unique look and feel that makes a lasting impression on visitors. Therefore, it’s important to choose a combination of typefaces that both reflect the personality of the brand and provide a clean, pleasurable user experience. Yet again, restraint is key, as using too many different fonts can make the site feel unorganized and chaotic. Beyond the choice of typeface, attention to detail in size, color, spacing and weight is important to ensuring readability and defining the overall aesthetic of the site. The WPShower website offers a good example of the role typography plays in setting the tone for minimalist design, with an easy-to-read yet somber font for the main caption and a quiet font for the menus.

Color

A common myth of minimalism in website design is that it entails a lack of color. While many minimalist websites do feature a color palette that is limited to black and white, this is merely an aesthetic choice, not a requirement. Instead, just as with all other elements of minimalist design, color should be deployed in ways that emphasize focus and restraint. Minimalist sites commonly employ a single continuous background color that sets the mood or tone for the site. A carefully chosen accent color is then employed to draw the user’s attention to key features of the site, such as navigational elements or important points within the content. It’s important to ensure that the accent color is not used to excess, or else it will lose its impact. For instance, take a look at authentic style, the design portfolio of William Smith. The background is brown, with another shade of that very color used as accent, yielding an overall effect that is minimal, clean and neat.

Layout

Layout is a make-or-break element of minimalist design. It requires proper execution and an absolute lack of ambiguity. All elements should work together to keep the primary focus on the site’s content. Minimalist design requires special attention to certain key elements. For example, the company name and logo should be in a prominent location in order to establish the site’s identity and promote the brand. Next, as with any site, ease of navigation is critical. Navigation menus should be convenient to locate and use on any device or platform. If visitors are forced to scavenge for information, the website will not be popular, no matter how beautiful it is. For instance, take a look at the website of The Mavenist – a minimalist design featuring awesome typography and a user-friendly layout. Also, it is often incorrectly assumed that a minimal website design excludes images and graphics. After all, we are concentrating on good typography, few colors and highly structured layouts, so images will only introduce chaos, right? Actually, no. Images are an important component of any website’s content, and in minimalist design, images can be used to powerful effect in the absence of other competing graphical elements. For example, take a look at the Clean Dessign theme. It is loaded with images and yet maintains restraint in terms of layout and design.

White space

White space – also known as “negative space” – simply refers to the area on a web page that is not occupied by any design elements or text. Even though it is called “white space,” it does not actually have to be white. This term merely refers to the space that exists between content. White space is a critical element of any design – not just minimalism. It can be tempting to fill this empty space in order to make the best use of the available real estate on the page. However, in fact, it is this space between content that helps users make sense of the page and understand which elements are most important. In minimalist design, white space is used to help lead and direct the user’s attention. For example, content that stands alone will draw focus immediately. Furthermore, white space can also be used to group similar items together as well as to create separation and differentiate between elements of various levels of importance.

Getting started with minimalist design

While minimalist design is appealing in its simplicity, it’s not the right choice for every site. It works best for those sites that are centered around serving a singular purpose – whether that’s selling an app or presenting a portfolio of work. So how can you determine whether your site would benefit from being redesigned with a minimalist approach? The answer is more simple than you might think. No matter what business you’re in, your website exists to help that business grow. Therefore, every decision you make with regard to your site should be based on whether it will help to advance your business growth objectives. A good place to start is by evaluating your current website. Make a list of its various features and components. Now arrange that list in order of usage, with the most commonly used ones on top. From there, go down the list and eliminate any that are not often used or are not essential to supporting the business objectives of your site. If what remains on the list reflects a few relatively simple ideas and functions, your site could be a good candidate for a minimalist redesign. Further exploration with an experienced website design firm will help you identify the ways that your site could be simplified and streamlined. As always, usability trumps all, so any changes must be driven by the goal of providing the best possible experience for visitors that motivates them to take action. Implementing minimalism just because it is a popular trend could ultimately undermine your site’s ability to help you capture and convert new customers. But if your aim is to present a focused message in a powerful way, minimalist design will provide a stage where those ideas can shine.

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