How Useful Are Loyalty Schemes for Ecommerce?

You might have the best product, price point and a strong campaign, but this doesn’t mean your customers will come back to you time and time again. Introducing a loyalty program or scheme is a great way to encourage customer retention and build a community.

GDPR has thrown a curveball for acquiring new customers quickly and easily, so utilising your existing customer base is a profitable strategy.

Everyone wants to feel like a VIP, and making your customers feel happy and special should be high on your list – after all, a happy customer is a returning customer!

Loyalty Program Musts

Simple to understand – if your loyalty scheme has too many rules or is too complicated, interest will be lost fairly quickly. It’s worth creating a page dedicated to the terms and conditions of your loyalty program to help your customers understand the nitty gritty and encourage them to sign up. This page will need to be easily accessible and visually pleasing.

Simple to use – Use app / email based discount codes that are easily transferable and won’t be copied or pasted with errors.

Thinking about the components of your loyalty program is a good place to start:

• What are customers being rewarded for
• How will customers redeem and use their rewards?
• What kinds of rewards will you offer?
• What are the rules of your customer loyalty program?

It’s essential that your ecommerce loyalty plan matches your business needs, and more importantly, your customer requirements. Choosing a platform like smile.io gives users the opportunity to choose from a huge variety of program options to create powerful, bespoke and fully branded loyalty schemes.

What Do Loyalty Schemes Include?

You often have a choice to either stick with one or combine multiple program options for extra engagement opportunities. The bottom line is that they have to add value to the user experience.

• VIP / Early access to new products/ranges
• Discounts on selected products (for a limited time or before normal customers)
• Store credits
• Rewards/perks
• Birthday gifts

You can also encourage customers to interact with your social channels e.g leaving a review about their buying experience or following you on social media as an incentive for a reward. This is a good way of increasing your brand exposure.

Loyalty schemes and programs are undeniably a win for your business. Customer retention should be a priority for businesses in such a competitive market and loyalty schemes provide incentives for returning customers, thus boosting sales. From helping convert new customers into repeat customers, to creating a bunch of happy buyers and a tight-knit community, they should definitely be considered as part of your ecommerce strategy.

If you need assistance with your ecommerce strategy, or are looking for a creative agency to produce content for your business, get in touch today.