Could an Online Loyalty Program benefit your Business?

Loyalty programs have been around for a while. It’s traditionally an offline marketing technique to encourage repeat sales. Remember that card that gets stamped every time you go to your favourite coffee shop? We like the feeling of being rewarded for our loyalty. An incentive to be loyal is great for increasing business within your existing customer base.

There are a number of online businesses which have introduced an online loyalty program with great effect. SEOmoz (an authority in SEO) for example have introduced a points system which rewards users for contributing to their community. Points are rewarded for commenting on their blog or writing a guest blog post for example. This honour system rewards good contribution. If a user earns enough points they can be rewarded with a number of benefits, increasing in value based on contribution level.

A number of online applications have been introduced recently which allow instant loyalty programs to be added to your website. One that stands out is PunchTab. Integratation is quick and customisable. Reward points can be triggered for key events on your website. You can define the rewards. Let’s talk about how adding such a program could benefit your business.

Encourage Social Media Interation and Sharing

Twitter ‘follows’ and Facebook ‘likes’ are treated like gold dust. The benefits of encouraging social media interaction within your customer base could fill another blog post alone so I won’t cover this in great detail here. Promote your social presence on your website and encourage interaction with points.

Encourage Store Visits

Awarding points for store ‘check ins’ is a great way to boost your offline presence.

Reward Sales

Award sales with points based on the total order value. Encourage the sale of certain of products by awarding more points for a successful purchase.

Reward KPIs

Reward points for other key areas such as video plays, subscriptions, downloads or blog commenting to name a few.

What do points get?

It’s fine awarding points but if there isn’t the incentive for users to take part in your loyalty program it’s going to limit its success. Traditional rewards for an e-commerce site could be a % saving on their next purchase. Be creative and choose a prize which matches the value the user has contributed to your business. Promote the prize within your website at the start of the campaign to generate buzz and participation.

It’s clear that there is alot of value in loyalty schemes for websites. There is plenty of scope and creativity which could be inputted to such a scheme.

If you would like to discuss adding such a scheme to your website please get in touch.