We all know that cultivating customer loyalty is essential to sustain and grow a business, but often we fail to achieve it.
One of the biggest reasons for businesses to not reach their loyalty goals is the absence of clear loyalty program goals for their retail customer loyalty program.
In this article, we will reveal the secret to making your loyalty program a success.
One secret is: The more defined and refined your loyalty goals are, the more chances there are to timely achieve them through defined actions.
Once you have set defined goals, use the best customer loyalty software to streamline and achieve your loyalty goals.
Here are a few goals that marketing managers should set for their loyalty programs. Read to explore the secret ingredients for each of these goals:
1. Increase revenue from existing customers
The first goal for any loyalty program is to increase revenue from existing customers. Once your existing customers are hooked to your loyalty program, your stores get a constant stream of revenue from them. This helps businesses to grow with a strong customer base and recurring revenue foundation.
Optimize your loyalty program to attract existing customers in every season, on festivals and on occasions like customers’ birthdays and anniversaries. For time bound achievement of revenue targets, define the amount of monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and annual revenue you aim to earn from existing customers. After setting of a clear goal, it’ll be easier to set the right path towards it.
2. Increase customer purchase basket size with a retail customer loyalty program
Another goal to aim for customer loyalty management programs is to increase the purchase basket size of customers. Clearly define the basket size you wish to achieve in monetary terms. This will help you visualise the situation better and plan for it. To increase the purchase basket of loyal customers, you can give them special discounts or incentives.
Once you are aware of where you wish to reach, you can plan the incentives that are in your budget and still help you achieve the desired goals. Set time-bound targets for this goals, and do A/B testing for the activities you plan. Optimize loyalty program incentives as per the customer data you collect through your customer loyalty software.
3. Increase customer lifetime value
The idea of retaining a customer is to increase their lifetime value, i.e. the total value of all the purchases they make at your retail store. Keep inflation and changing trends in mind to set a targeted lifetime value for your customers in different age groups. This target helps you plan products, prices and incentives for short and long term.
Long term targets can be broken down into short-term objectives, and then product, loyalty and other strategies can be optimized to ensure that these objectives are achieved. Build a strong loyalty program and a community building program, so that you are able to increase customers’ lifetime value. This goal helps retailers to build a strong customer base and to decrease their cost of selling as they do not have to keep acquiring new customers to reach their revenue targets.
4. Build a customer community
Building a customer community for your brand, store or products is vital to the success of a store. You can build a base of loyal customers and grow gradually, but to sustain that growth and to ensure that your customers support your old and new products and strategies, you need to optimise your loyalty program to build a community.
Define the features of the kind of community you want to build. Write down the values you wish to inculcate in that community. E.g. you can aim to build a community of influencers or brand advocates. You can also have a goal to build a community of customers who believe in supporting quality goods and services or who are supporters of eco-friendly products and production methods. Cultivate such communities and deliver the value they are looking for through a customer rewards app and program. Through your customer loyalty program, give your community a reason to stay connected with your brand.
5. Get brand advocates for your retail customer loyalty program
Brand advocates help spread positive and promotional words about your products and stores. Consumers become brand advocates when they are highly satisfied with the products and services of a business. You need to include a hook in your loyalty program, so that your customers get a little more value than they expect to.
This goal for customer loyalty programs can be defined in terms of the qualities of brand advocates you wish to have and in terms of the actions you want your brand advocated to take. Once this goal is set, plan and carry out loyalty program activities that earn brand advocates and to facilitate them to spread a good word about you through social media, referral programs, etc.
6. Get referrals from existing customers
One important aim or objective of your loyalty program should be to get referrals from your existing loyal and satisfied customers. Set a clear target of the number and type of referrals you want from your existing customers. After defining goals, think of strategies to get those referrals. Satisfy existing customers enough to win their willingness to refer new customers to you.
Optimize your loyalty program to offer incentives to your existing customers to refer new customers to you. Also deliver real value through your retail customer loyalty program, so that your customers are satisfied and voluntarily refer their friends and family to your program. Getting referrals costs less than acquiring new customers; therefore, it is a great method to gain customers.
7. Promote a product or product range
Set short-term objectives for your loyalty program. These objectives can be to promote a particular product or range of products among your loyal customers. Allow exclusive access to new products for your loyal customers, and give special rewards to promote such products among existing customers.
This helps you get traction on new products, stores and services easily. Set the value of sales of new products you want to achieve exclusively through your existing customers. After setting a clear goal, make strategies and campaigns to achieve that objective. Use a billing software for retail stores to identify the right customers for each product category.
8. Achieve customer satisfaction
One important goal for any loyalty program should be to achieve customer satisfaction. This particular goal helps boosts the achievement of all the above goals in one way or another. A satisfied customer will not only come back to purchase more with you, but he/she will also refer new customers to your stores and retail customer loyalty program. Satisfied customers also tend to become strong advocates for your business, helping you attract new customers.
Set objectives for the kind of value you want to create for your customers. Set targets for the customer rating and satisfaction feedback you wish to achieve. Create campaigns and design service processes that help you achieve that kind of customer satisfaction. This will help you in increasing your customers’ lifetime value, too.
The keywords and the main secret to setting goals for a successful loyalty program is being as CLEAR & SPECIFIC as you can be. Visualise goals and the paths to achieve them with clarity.
Use quality loyalty platform providers like Loyera to implement campaigns to achieve these goals. Loyera is free for small businesses and it is the best customer loyalty software in the market with its POS and E-commerce plug-ins. It helps you build a white-label loyalty rewards program, too.
Create clear activities and campaigns for each specific goal. Visualise the funnel for each campaign to ensure that it’s realistic. Implement your campaigns effectively and in a time-bound manner to make you loyalty program a success.