How to Increase Participation in Your Loyalty Program

If your members never use the loyalty program, they may have lost interest in what you offer. If this has happened, what is the point of having a loyalty program in first place? So how do you rectify this problem? How do you increase participation in a loyalty program and how do you keep customers engaged to spend more.

The Two Hurdles of a Loyalty Program

A loyalty program comprises of two main obstacles. The first part is enrollment when a customer joins your program. And once they join, it does not mean your customer will keep shopping to earn rewards. I’ve come across several articles all indicating the same stats, most enrollments end up being inactive!

Customers join loyalty programs for different reasons. Maybe you offered members a great incentive when signing up for an account. After receiving their reward, participation plays an important role in a loyalty program. This is the part where you need to keep your customers engaged wanting to come back for more.

Are your customers intrigued with your program? If not you can try the following.

How to Boost Your Loyalty Program Efficiency

You want to get members attracted to your loyalty program and need them to get involved. Here you can find different ways to encourage your members to take part in the program.

• Is your loyalty program personalized?

How friendly is your loyalty program? Do your members feel important and needed? A loyalty program is one of the best ways to make your customers feel welcome and appreciated. They have signed up for your program have they not? Then they want to get involved.

They are more than happy to do the task to earn points the least you can do is to tailor the program around what they want. However, for this to take place your loyalty program needs to be smart. This means you need a system that collects data based on what your customer likes.

Showing customers what they might like can lead to a member buying more than one product at a time. By using this principle in your program is an excellent starting point.

• Be Crystal-Clear

How clear is your loyalty program to understand? If you want to keep, your customers taking part in the program they need to know how it works. They need to know how they can earn points and exchange it for rewards.

Make sure, you have a dedicated area on your site informing customers of how they can earn rewards for different actions made.

Always be clear about how many points customers can earn with each purchase. Further, they need to know how many points they need to redeem it for a reward.

• Train Employees

The most important promoter you have is your employees. Educate them to know the loyalty program, as they are the ones promoting the program.

The staff needs to be in the loop at all times. When you change the program, your staff needs and update about these changes. Further, they need to be educated to handle any question a customer has.

Show them how the reward structure works and keep them informed about the auto rewards and promotions you send to the members.

• Variation is the tool for engagement

If you want your customer participating in the loyalty program, you need to create different ways for them to earn rewards. Never let a purchase be the only way for your customer to earn points.

Further, do not only have one way available for them to redeem the points they have accumulated. Give your customer an option to choose from a wide selection of rewards as this keeps your member engaged. This gives your customer the choice of deciding for them, which rewards best fitting for them.

Think of it in this way, if you only received free shipping what would you do? You would look for a cheaper vendor to buy a product from.

• Do your customers know about your program

You have an online shop right! Who is informing your member of the great rewards you are dishing out? Do you have a cashier greeting them and asking them if they want to collect their points when making a purchase NO?

This is why you need to set up reminders and prompts across your site. Mention it at the homepage or show it at the checkout page! Further, you need to make it easier for them to use keeping them engaged all the time.

• Outbound Reminders

Is your customer visiting your website? The probability is that you do not know the answer. What does this mean for your loyalty program? This means that your customers are not seeing the reminders spread all over the website.

This is where outbound reminders as email marketing are an effective way to get the word out. Make a super campaign of it by combining your loyalty program with your email marketing.

Send the members emails when they earn or spend their points. This keeps them reminded of how active they are with the program. Another great way is to send your customers material informing them if they make a purchase this coming weekend they can earn 100 bonus points.

You can even email non-member with information about the loyalty program giving them a great reason to join.

Stay Connected with your Customers

For long-term engagement, you need to stay connected to your customers. Communication is one of the most important parts when it comes to any type of business. As soon as a customer joins your loyalty program, they want to make contact with you. This is the door to success as you connect with clients who are spending their time and money in your online shop. Grab the opportunity with both hands and keep your customers engaged, as it will make your loyalty program exist for longer and make your business a success online.