Customer acquisition is one of your greatest costs in business. And since getting these new customers is so dang expensive, you better have some good ways to keep them!
So let’s talk about keeping customers and encouraging them to shop more frequently.
How? With a customer rewards program centered on earning and using points.
According to Colloquy research,
U.S. consumer participation in rewards programs is on the rise across all demographic segments, . . . Consumers are leaning on loyalty programs to stretch household budgets further by earning rewards for their purchases.”
So why implement a points based loyalty program? Because it’s the most common and practical loyalty program to start in your ecommerce store.
The Colloquy research goes on to say that one-third of consumers find retail loyalty programs more important when battling tough times.
So, what can you do to influence one-third (if not more) of your customers with loyalty rewards?
Give customers a way to earn points and spend points. It’s that simple.
Seven tips for your points based loyalty rewards program.
1. Simple Points Conversion
Don’t make it hard for your customer to figure out the value of their points. Make your points easy to convert like 1 point is worth $1 or 10 points is worth $1 or 100 points is worth $1. Don’t make it 37 points is worth one dollar.
2. All Purchases Earn Points
A simple way to start a rewards program like this is to have all purchases earn points based on the total amount spent. Or you might have each of your products with a specific reward value for each product. In any case, make sure to have clear messages on your ecommerce store informing shoppers they will earn points with their purchase.
3. Make Points Valuable and Worth Earning
While this may seem like a no-brainer, make sure your rewards program is actually valuable. If your program has a lot of restrictions on how points can be used you'll greatly limit participation. Be careful that you do not require very high thresholds and spending behavior just to earn points. If it feels unreachable, then it’s not valuable. And in this same vein, be careful to not roll out a mystery rewards program where the customer cannot even determine what the points mean, what their value is, or why they should care.
4. Bonus Points as Incentives
Instead of discounting a product, try giving bonus points specifically for that item. Or maybe you can have bonus points awarded at specific levels for total purchase. However you go about it, consider using the idea of bonus points to drive more purchase activity.
5. Give Points for Actions not Just Purchasing
For the courageous and marketing minded, you can issue points to customers who are completing specific actions like sharing on Facebook or sharing your links on Twitter. Or maybe you award points for customers who review your products or comment on your blog posts. This can be the center of a community building marketing push or just an ongoing promotion for your ecommerce site.
6. Time Based Points Promotions
If you need to match a sales cycle or drive sales within a specific time frame, do a promotion for that period of time. This will often be all you need to encourage more sales from interested shoppers.
7. Multiply the Points Earned
Multiply the points earned during a specific period of time – or by a specific set of customers or products. This can be an effective way to pull on peoples motivation to get a good deal or those that respond really well to the gamification element of earning points.
So, there you go.
Hopefully these seven ideas help jump start your own loyalty rewards program. If you are currently running a rewards program on your ecommerce store, leave a comment below and share your thoughts. AmeriCommerce customers can apply these ideas using your built in ecommerce rewards system.
photo credit: becca.peterson26 via photopin cc