Digital Loyalty – Loyalty in the Modern World
There is no hiding from technology and the impact it is having on the modern world, from shopping online through to the way we interact on a daily basis. It’s important to make sure your small business stays relevant and offers the best customer experience by keeping up with digitization. It’s about more than just social media in the modern world of business. Digital loyalty can help introduce your clients to the interactive, creative side of your brand.
You can move your existing loyalty program online, or create a brand-new digital loyalty club that generates customer engagement, enhances your brand, and rewards both you and your customer base.
Let’s take a look at the way a digital loyalty card or loyalty platform can work for your business today.
What Is a Digital Loyalty Card?
There’s no doubt you’re familiar with the old loyalty card systems, from tattered paper punch cards to plastic credit cards that sit unused in customer wallets. Well, things have changed since then, as has your small business, so it’s great to have a digital loyalty program that reflects that.
At its core, a loyalty program is designed to build customer relationships, drive sales and encourage your customers to return to your store. While your loyalty platform can still follow a similar set up as the old punch card system – buy nine treatments and receive the tenth free, for example – the way in which you and your customer base interact with the system is different. A digital loyalty program is a lot more interactive, and is usually on a digital platform, or mobile-friendly app, that allows your client base to interact with your business at any hour, day or night, whenever suits them.
How Can a Digital Loyalty Card Benefit Your Small Business?
Much like a loyalty card, a digital loyalty program rewards customers for each visit, but how can it benefit your brand? Customer retention is key for a business. By offering your client base a mobile-friendly digital program that fits in with their busy life, you are helping your client feel seen and valued, which will see them coming back time and time again.
When your clients sign up for the customer loyalty program, you can collect a lot of vital data for them, such as their name, address, birthday and more. All of this can be stored and used when you create digital marketing campaigns. It also gives you the opportunity to interact with a huge amount of digital consumers – the number of which is set to continue to grow.
A digital loyalty program is also a great way to gain insight into how your loyal customers are spending and interacting with your business, which in turn can influence and shape the incentives you offer your clients.
Once you’ve collected their spending habits, you can store it ready for targeted ads, remarketing and future offers you know they’ll love. All this adds to increased customer loyalty and strengthens your brand relationship.
How Can You Create a Digital Loyalty Scheme?
The best part of being a small business owner is that you can create a loyalty club that suits you. Let’s take a look at the four steps that can help you.
Step 1: Choose Your Rewards
It’s important to establish rewards that work for both you and your customer base. It needs to be enticing without breaking the bank. Keep these three points in mind:
- Good value – make sure your loyal customers feel like they’re getting a good deal
- Convenient – instant rewards make the loyalty program enticing
- Cost-effective – it’s important you break even!
Step 2: Decide How Your Digital Loyalty Program Will Work
There are four systems that most business use – take a look and see which fits best with your business model:
- Products– your customers receive a reward after a certain amount of purchases, the most obvious is buy nine coffees get the tenth free, much like the punch card system.
- Points– you can offer your customers points with every dollar they spend which they accumulate and can spend instore or put towards the cost of a service or product.
- Visits– customers receive a reward for every visit regardless of how much they spend.
- Cashback– customers receive a percentage of each spend as cashback on their loyalty account.
Step 3: Subscribe To a Loyalty Rewards App
Finding a loyalty rewards app, such as Glue Loyalty, can help automate and manage a lot of these processes. When searching to create your loyalty rewards app, make sure you consider the following:
- Keep it user-friendly – for both you and the customer. Too complicated and you’ll lose interest.
- Customization should be simple – you want the app to reflect your brand, and be easy to change to keep offers relevant.
- Cost-effective – your loyalty program should be quick and reasonable for you to implement.
Step 4: Promote Your Digital Loyalty Program
What’s the point of having a loyalty club when your customer base doesn’t know about it? Make sure you ask clients to download your loyalty app via email, text message, social media, or even by word of mouth in your store. Don’t forget to provide information and a link on your website.
Create Your Digital Loyalty Scheme Today
If a digital loyalty scheme is what your brand is missing, head over to Glue Loyalty today, where you can start designing a loyalty rewards app that works for you and your customers. Harness your brand, engage with your customer base and watch your revenue grow.
