Promoting the Loyalty Program

In this article, we will cover:

• Creating awareness about the program
  • Website promotion
  • Rewards landing page
  • Loyalty link in the header
  • Call out earning opportunities
  • Contextual notifications
  • Display points available for logged-in customers
  • Email campaigns
  • Announce program launch
  • Seed customers and notify them that they have points
  • Add a loyalty program banner in transactional emails
  • An internal email to employees to promote the new initiative
• Engaging enrolled customers
  • Using event-based notification triggers
  • Creating promotional events
• Summary

Creating awareness about the program

The loyalty program must be promoted vigorously to derive maximum benefit. If customers are not aware of the program, even a well-designed program will not be successful. The website and email campaigns are the two primary channels for creating awareness about the program.

Website promotion

Customers who visit the website should immediately learn about the loyalty program and the advantages it offers. The navigation links to enrol in the program should be easily accessible. Some standard website promotion strategies are listed below.

Rewards landing page

Create a page on your website which explains the program:

• How to earn/redeem points
• Tier structure
• Other terms and conditions

This will be a useful page for customers to learn more about the program and can be used as a landing page for loyalty promotion campaigns. The page should have a clear call-to-action link to enrol in the program.

Examples:

• https://www.zents.com/zents-rewards/
• https://www.chromaticcoffee.com/rewards-program/

Loyalty link in the header

The website header is a high visibility area, and the loyalty program should feature here. Direct customers to their loyalty dashboard or the rewards landing page depending on the customer's authentication status.

Examples:

Call out earning opportunities

Add contextual descriptions wherever customers can earn points on the website. These call-outs not only draw attention to the loyalty program, they also act as an incentive for customers to complete that particular activity.

An expandable section can be added to these call-outs to show what the points are worth. This may provide the extra incentive needed to earn more points and reach the promised reward.

Examples:

• Product page call-out for points that can be earned on purchasing the product:

• Product page call-out for points for reviews:

• Points for the email subscription:

Contextual notifications

Messages delivered at the right time are highly effective in driving engagement with the loyalty program. The platform offers in-built notifications that are displayed whenever customers earn points. These should be enabled on the website.

Example:

Display points available for logged-in customers

Many websites display the customer's name in the header or my account section when the customer is signed in. Adding the customer's available points next to their name is a good way to promote the program.

A customer's available points and other loyalty data can be shown on the page using a simple HTML snippet.

You need to implement the following success and failure handlers to get a response from the above function.

<span data-zrl-points='available'>0</span> reward points available

Example:

Email campaigns

Email is an effective medium to reach a large audience and create awareness about the loyalty program. You should announce the launch of the program to the whole subscriber base. Apart from announcing the launch, there is a lot more that can be done to create awareness using email campaigns.

Announce program launch

An email series is more effective than a single email in getting customers enrolled in the program. If a marketing automation tool is being used, it could set up an email campaign as outlined in the diagram below:

Seed customers and notify them that they have points

The best way to create interest in the program is to tell customers that they already have points they can redeem for rewards. Points can also be awarded for purchases made in the 90 days prior to the launch of the program, which customers can earn by proving their purchases.

Add a loyalty program banner in transactional emails

Simply including a loyalty program banner in transactional emails, like order confirmation and shipping confirmation emails, will increase awareness about the program.

An internal email to employees to promote the new initiative

The loyalty program is not just a marketing initiative. This is a program that touches every business function.

• Sales teams can plan promotions around the loyalty program
• Customer support teams should know the program rules to address customer questions
• Accounting teams will have to track the liability of outstanding points
• Marketing teams can use the insights from customer data to plan their campaigns
• Product teams can seek customer feedback by offering incentives through the program

It is important to keep all internal stakeholders informed about the program. When the loyalty program becomes a company-wide initiative, businesses are likely to get more ideas for taking advantage of the program.

Engaging enrolled customers

Enrolled members are already aware of the program, but they may still need a nudge to participate actively. Promoting the program to enrolled customers is a great way to re-engage inactive users. This needs a different approach from just creating awareness about the program.

Using event-based notification triggers

Any marketing message is far more effective when it is delivered at the right time. The platform offers a set of in-built email notifications that are triggered based on predefined events.

Customers can be notified for various instances, like the following:

• When they earn points for any activity
• Whenever they become eligible for a new reward
• When they are close to a reward threshold
• When they are close to a tier upgrade
• When their points are about to expire

For details on setting up these email notifications, check the Configuring email notifications article.

Creating promotional events

Enrolled customers are always looking for ways to earn more points and rewards. Promotional events that offer these opportunities generate a lot of interest. These promotional events need not be exclusive to the loyalty program; it can simply be linked to regular promotions by offering points as an incentive.

One such event should be included each month in the marketing calendar. The campaign should be promoted through email campaigns, social media, blogs, and even on the website. Here are some ideas for loyalty promotion campaigns.

• 2X points weekend: Award double points for purchases made during a promotional weekend.
• Bonus points for select products: Award bonus points for products that you want to push. For example, "Summer Sale: 3X points on all swimwear purchases".
• Bonus points for high-value orders or repeat orders: Such rules may not be exclusive to one campaign, but calling it out in a campaign will have a positive impact on average order value and repeat purchase frequency. For example, "Black Friday Sale: Get 100 bonus points for orders above $100 and 200 bonus points for your 2nd purchase in the Black Friday week".
• Promo products that can be purchased only with points.
• Contests: Special rewards for members earning the maximum points in a specific month.

Note: the platform has a rule engine that allows setting up some of these campaigns without any additional configuration. See Configuring Business Rules for more details.

Summary

Program promotion is crucial to the success of the program. Promotion involves creating awareness about the program as well as engaging existing customers.

The website and email campaigns are the primary channels for creating awareness about the program. Social media and blogs are other options. To engage enrolled members, event-based notifications should be implemented. Special loyalty program promotions should also be run each month.