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Integrating a loyalty program into your marketing campaign generates year-round benefits.
Around the holiday season, the top global brands strive to use marketing to evoke emotions, promote sharing and create unforgettable moments. They look for ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors, using various marketing tactics and ensuring the best holiday buying experiences to get into the minds and hearts of consumers.
While there’s no specific formula for success, brands have discovered that there are practical methods for achieving the best results through holiday loyalty program promotions. These strategies can help companies and organizations land new customers and nurture them into devoted brand advocates by maximizing pay-per-click ad spending and developing a sense of urgency to increase the value of goods or services.
Effective loyalty programs increase customer retention, boost sales and improve buyer satisfaction. Enterprise leaders can use big data technology to personalize loyalty offers and increase the likelihood that customers will return to use their points.
In the future, blockchain technology could completely disrupt the current loyalty program paradigm. Currently, brands incur considerable expenses to store collected loyalty program data. However, blockchain may provide a solution for verifying, storing and securing brand loyalty information at a fraction of what it traditionally costs to manage these campaigns.
Here are five reasons why building brand loyalty during the holidays is smart and essential.
Some entrepreneurs may think loyalty programs consume cash and resources without guaranteeing success. However, it actually costs more to go after new customers. Promoting brand loyalty programs among an existing customer base is more likely to provide a marked return on investment.
Demographic data is one of the most important resources available to marketers. Detailed customer data helps marketers develop strategic plans that promote sales.
In today’s fickle buying environment, marketers must understand what promotes sales as well as what deters conversions. Loyalty programs are a form of research that helps advanced data-science marketers understand consumer buying patterns.
Brands that offer loyalty rewards stand out from competitors that don’t offer similar programs. Loyalty programs send a message to consumers that a brand is interested in more than profit. This kind of reward helps brands build a mutually beneficial rapport with customers.
Loyalty programs encourage new customers to make repeat purchases faster than they would without an incentive. Additionally, these programs make existing customers feel valued, thereby improving brand sentiment and increasing the likelihood that buyers will recommend goods or services to friends, family members and associates. The more customers feel appreciated, the more likely they are to provide referrals; some may even become brand advocates.
While the results of loyalty programs vary, they’re time-tested, proven strategies. Business leaders have successfully deployed loyalty programs across a number of industries. In fact, the growth hacker movement originated from a model based on the loyalty program framework. Growth hackers, who use most of their time and resources to expand their business, have viewed customer loyalty as the easiest way to promote new business development.
Loyalty programs enable brands to create a sense of belonging and to build strong emotional relationships with customers, as well as give business leaders the opportunity to deliver experiences that improve with each engagement. These experiences build a foundation that improves with each interaction. By putting the spotlight on consumers, loyalty programs make it more appealing to support brands and share recommendations.
During the holidays, consumers are exposed to a multitude of emails, social media ads, television advertisements and other marketing channels. Savvy entrepreneurs can leverage loyalty programs to stand out among the competition during the holiday season.
Developing a loyalty program requires vast data management, but these top CRM solutions and highly rated POS systems can help:
Ryan Ayers contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.