One of the biggest challenges of running a business is retaining customers. With so much competition out there, enticing a shopper to return can be rather difficult. This is where a loyalty program comes in.
While you may already have an incentive in place to encourage repeat purchases, there are some less popular, yet equally effective ways to boost customer loyalty and retention.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the benefits of having an online loyalty program. We’ll then show you three little-known hacks to increase your program engagement. Let’s get started!
Why You Should Set Up An Online Loyalty Program
Rewarding customers for making purchases is a popular business strategy. In fact, a recent study shows that more than 90 percent of companies have a loyalty program.
In most cases, retail brands offer points and rewards for in-store purchases. These can then be redeemed for discounts or free gifts. However, given the increasing popularity of online shopping, many companies are also incentivizing customers who make purchases through their e-commerce sites.
An online loyalty program creates many opportunities for rewarding customers. For example, you could give points to customers who spend over a certain amount of money on a single purchase.
You may also want to display points on the product pages, which can prompt customers to add more items to their shopping cart. It’s also a good idea to show points on the customer’s cart page, as this may encourage shoppers to complete their orders:
However, there are other ways to incentivize customers and keep them coming back for more. Our Loyalty Program for WooCommerce plugin enables you to reward customers for performing other actions on your store, besides making purchases. This also means that you can use the loyalty program not just to make more sales, but to also grow your customer base and build trust.
3 Little-Known Hacks To Boost Your Loyalty Program
Are you ready to grow your business through your loyalty program? Let’s look at a few clever ways to encourage shoppers to return to your store.
Hack 1: Offer points for signing up
An effective way to attract new customers to your brand is to reward them for setting up an account on your site. Some shoppers make purchases as guests, foregoing the signing-up process.
By giving new customers a generous points offering, they can begin their experience on your site from the perspective of a “winner”:
The points must reflect a meaningful value. For instance, it can earn them a discount or a product sample. This encourages new subscribers to see their first purchase through to the end and put their points toward their second.
This strategy can also help you grow your email list. When signing up to your site, customers can have the option to also subscribe to your newsletter. This will help you increase your reach when promoting deals and offers through email marketing.
Hack 2: Reward points for leaving reviews
Many customers may be reluctant to make purchases from shops that don’t have a lot of reviews. For this reason, new brands may struggle to make a decent amount of sales as they don’t have a proven track record. However, without substantial sales, generating reviews can feel almost impossible.
The simplest way to solve this problem is to incentivize customers to leave reviews:
For example, after buying a product, customers will receive an email confirming their purchase. Within this email could be a points-redeemable voucher for leaving a review.
Another option would be to schedule a follow-up email for a few days after a purchase was made. Since some people tend to ignore such emails, we recommend using an impactful subject line, such as:
- “Leave a review and earn 20 points!”
- or “Tell us what you think about your recent purchase and earn 50 points!”
Hack 3: Give points as an alternative to a traditional sale
A common way for companies to encourage customers to make purchases is to have a cash-value sale, such as “20% off this weekend only!”.
An alternative would be to vary the number of points available as a reward. For instance, every second weekend could see customers earn double points on purchases made.
One example is the popular health and beauty retailer Superdrug, which hosts special events throughout the year and offers bonus points to customers who shop on these dates:
Giving customers the chance to earn more points than usual incentivizes them to spend more money than they normally would. With a lot of points in their account, customers may feel motivated to return to your store and redeem those rewards.
Conclusion
Setting up an online loyalty program can help you boost your sales and retain customers. With our Loyalty Program for WooCommerce plugin, you can incentivize your customers to do more than just purchase an individual product.
In this post, we shared three little-known hacks to help you boost your loyalty program:
- Offer customers points for creating an account on your site.
- Reward shoppers for leaving product reviews on your store.
- Give bonus points to customers during special events or promotional periods.
Do you have any questions about the loyalty program strategies discussed in this post? Let us know in the comments section below!
