eGift Card Redemption
The 12 reasons a loyalty rewards program is the best solution for locally owned businesses to emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever!!
The saying generally attributed to Albert Einstein states: every crisis brings opportunity
The costs, strategy and relevancy of a loyalty program for a small to medium sized business can be daunting. If you are reading this, I assume you are not Petro Canada and can afford a program like their Pet-ro Points. The other option small business has is a coffee card style loyalty program. Or is it?
The challenge for a small to medium sized business is to convince the consumer that your loyalty card is im-portant enough to include in their wallet.

What about the very successful Air Miles loyalty program. The problem with Air Miles is unless you are a cate-gory leading, national brand like Shell or the LCBO, they don’t want you. Well, that sucks!
That means you need to compete against those national chains with dedicated, focused and educated mar-keting departments. These folks have large budgets and bosses that demand results!
Ensuring you invest in the right tools to deliver the desired results is a combination skills, time and money. The challenge as a small business owner, all of those are seemingly in short supply, even in the best of times.
But, we have tried loyalty programs and they just give away stuff to our current customers. You are thinking it, I know you are. Technology has changed and you now have access to solutions that only the Mega Mart Azons used to have access to.
Also, a good loyalty program will deliver a lot more than a one-time visit from someone looking for a cheap deal, or giving away stuff to your existing customers. It will:
2. Increase the average spend of your current customers
3. Bring your current customers in more often
4. Bring in new customers
5. Engage on a personal level with both new, current and potential customers
6. Welcome consumers to your store
7. Attract consumers to your business when they are close by
8. Offer exclusive coupons, revenue generating points redemptions
9. Make the short-list of loyalty programs in the consumers wallet
1. Loyalty programs increase revenue by 5% to 10%
If you could offer a 1% off coupon and see a 5% to 10% increase in revenues would you do it?
Remember, I said, this point is very important. A good loyalty program costs a lot less than the 25% off cou-pon or the $3000 radio spot, and delivers many more benefits to your business. Remember those 9 points on the previous page, read them again, and again! A 5% to 10% up tick in revenue is just the beginning. I hope you are starting to see how, if done effective, it can change your business.
Simply using a mobile app, can create a big shift in the effectiveness of a loyalty program.
A mobile app is always with your customer. This is a very important point.
The best part about a loyalty program is the analytics of your program. I am not aware of any other marketing and promotional tool that offers the same level of insight.
I hear from business owners, why would I give something out to customers that are coming here anyway? This is a valid question. Loyalty programs, that your clients perceive to have value, deliver higher purchase frequency and higher average sales.
Your current customers are your greatest asset as a business. If you can look at them through that lense, you are already going in the right direction.

2. Loyalty members spend 5% to 20% per transaction more than non-members on average
This is a result of feeling connected, engaged and appreciated. These customers will also drive past your competitors to buy from you. Consumers are using loyalty programs and want to.
Do you have a strategy to compete in their wallet for attention?
3. Loyalty customers make up 20% of your audience, they pro-vide up to 80% of your revenue
4. Relevant offers provide a 72% increase in 2nd purchase among loyalty users
Secondly, the right loyalty platform will allow coupons and promotions within the same online app to drive customer acquisition and repeat engagements with current customers. Coupons alone do not create repeat customers however, combined within a good loyalty program, your chance of success of truly growing your business is substantially improved. Expanding your clientele has to be a strong a reason to have a loyalty program. New customers will alter any loyalty program into a complimen-tary business growth strategy.
Thirdly, personalized communications via SMS will attract consumers back into your business with relevant offers, news and friendly updates. Being able to welcome them into your store sets the stage for a positive customer experience.
Withing the functionality of proximity marketing each business can send personalized messages via SMS to consumers both existing and soon to be. With a 90%+ open rate, if SMS is not currently being used by your business you are missing out. Combining a strong SMS solution with the other two points above creates a triple headed solution that consumers are asking for and respond well to.
5. Some loyalty apps experienced 6.5 X increase in enrollment during Covid compared to same period last year
This has shown across the board consumers are willing to enroll in loyalty rewards apps at higher rates than ever experienced in the past. The time to act is now! Online everything is thriving and mobile apps are just part of the culture shift during the pandemic. The challenge for local businesses is still the same however. How as an individual small business do we convert on this culture shift for our business. To be honest, if you are not a national top of mind brand, it will still be a difficult challenge. However, as part of a coalition loyalty community, you now have a better chance than ever to see success with a winning loyalty rewards program to launch your business into a successful covid and post- covid recovery.
6. 82% of companies agree that retention is cheaper than acquisition
7. 75% of consumers say they favour companies that offer re-wards
8. 70% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand if it has a good loyalty program
2. Advocate: very happy customers who will speak well of you
3. Promote: very happy customers who feel so positive they will promote you to others
We all know how valuable word of mouth is in the success of our businesses. Have you ever tried to pay for a positive word of mouth promotion? There is not a google competitor that offers this service because it doesn’t exist. You are not able to force people to promote your business to others. All we can do is position all of our efforts, products, services, principles and ethics so that we cultivate an environment that allows the best chance for our best customers to be promotors of our business.
A good loyalty program positions you to get 70% more of this gold. Do you want it?
9. 87% of consumers are willing to have various details tracked in exchange for a more personalized and relevant relationship
SMS messaging as part of a strong loyalty rewards solution, coupon campaign and eGift Card solution wrapped up in a shop-local mobile app is a winning strategy that will pay huge dividends to all of the lucky businesses that participate. The problem is, this level of technology has not been available to small and medi-um sized businesses. The large Mega Mart Azon’s have kept these techniques to themselves for a reason.

Or, when your customer enters your clothing store and receives a message……
10. 77% of new consumers are more likely to continue doing business with that company if they have a good loyalty program
Are you doing everything you can to keep your existing customers?
You offer a 25% discount after you invest in marketing, are you keeping those new customers that you have invested in?
Instead of a 25% discount, you offer a 1% discount. Imagine if you had a 77% increase in second purchases with that same 1% discount over the 25% discount?
Better yet, what if you had the chance to re-earn that 1% discount back? Sound like a no-cost opportunity to substantially increase your base of repeat customers.
11. 31% increase in consumer loyalty engagement in the last 4 years
Even though there has been a large uptick during the pandemic, this trend is not new. It has been happening for awhile. We are seeing some long-term shifts in what our customers expect from us. They want to feel important. They want to be rewarded like they are important.
This is not a passing fad. Local businesses need to do the right things to position themselves so they can thrive in this new business climate.
Have you seen a 31% increase in engagement with our current loyalty program? Your competitor has. Do you want to?
12. 66% of respondents will adjust where and how much they spend based if loyalty rewards are offered
A good loyalty program is not just giving away points. The cost is pretty low for a world-class coalition style program.
The benefits of a world-class coalition loyalty rewards program for a local business are many. The real benefit is being able to compete against the Mega Mart Azon’s down the street and online.
Give your business a chance to compete for valuable customers. Give them another reason to come to you instead of your competitor.

The 5 goals of a loyalty program for a main street business is to:
- Drive Repeat Business-Customer Retention
- Increase Revenue-Increase Visits and Average Sale
- Create Brand Ambassadors-Create Promoters
- Defend against the competition-Better tools and technology
- Gain valuable feedback- Analytics
- Cross promote with other local businesses- Coalition Style Loyalty Program vs coffee card
- Increase your customer base- Customer Acquisition
82% of shoppers willing to pay more to support small businesses
Are you doing everything you can to engage with these shoppers?
2. Keep consumers engaged for the long-haul
2. The right marketing tools to allow the main street business to compete in this new world
3. The strategy to keep consumers engaged for the long-haul.
Tim Seaton is the founder of Yokalize and an entrepreneur at heart. After owning many businesses, he was able to finally cre-ate a solution that would help some of the pain he experienced in his businesses over the years.
Feel free to reach out to Tim directly at tim@yokalize.com.

Yokalize is a shop local app that offers a world-class coalition style loyalty program specifically for small to medium sized, locally owned businesses. In addition to the Yo Points loyalty program the app also offers businesses to market themselves using Fortune 500 technology like proximity marketing, sms marketing, electronic coupons and eGift Cards all within a no-touch process to keep everyone safe.
