Have you tried a Loyalty program and will never do that again?
Most retailers I meet, all indicate that they have tried a loyalty program and will never go down that road again. However, large MegaMartAzon’s are willing to invest $Millions over and over again. Why do small and large corporations view loyalty so differently?
There are a couple of reasons for this.
Even though consumers will sign up for more than 16 loyalty programs, they will only engage and use 6 of those. The most successful loyalty programs are from companies like:
- Costco
- Amazon
- McDonald’s
- Loblaws
- Petro Canada
There is a real lack of presence on this list from small local businesses. It is virtually impossible for a local business to make the short-list of 6.
Just in my town of London Ontario, there are thousands of locally owned businesses. Each has or has tried a stand-alone Loyalty program. These industrious entrepreneurs will have a di cult time cutting through the noise in a competitive marketplace to make that short-list of 6 where consumers have thousands of options.
Most local business owners think Loyalty platforms give away stuff to existing customers. That is one of the biggest differences between them and the successful MegaMartAzon’s listed above.
A successful Loyalty program is a revenue generator. It is actually the best ROI and most successful marketing tool they have. It all starts with the Data. Loyalty Marketing is defined as:
“permissions based relationship with customers”
Do yourself a favour and execute a successful Loyalty strategy. Your business will thank you.
The data collection portion of the relationship is part of a Value Exchange with the consumer. In exchange for the consumers’ data, the consumer will receive:
- Points
- Exclusive offers
- Better overall experience
Consumers want this!
The opportunities for low-cost, highly effective marketing includes:
New Customer: system tracks a new customer to
business engagement and automatically sends that customer a text message “Thank you for coming in to see us. To show our appreciation, here is a coupon for your next visit.”
Lost Customer: if you have not interacted with a customer in the last 2 months, the system will send them a text message “We miss you! You have not been in for a while, here is a coupon for a free coffee. We look forward to hearing how your summer is going.”
Birthday: Each year, you can send the consumer a text message “Happy Birthday! We didn’t know what to get you so we have given you 100 Loyalty Points to use the next time we see you. Enjoy!”
These are the attributes of a successful Loyalty strategy. If you have given up on Loyalty as a key part of your businesses success, chances are your attempt at Loyalty was:
- Single brand
- Small or medium-sized business
- No data
- No marketing