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Is There A Loyalty Program In Your Companies Future?

The loyalty program is a key component of a successful business’ promotional strategy because it’s an ongoing dialogue with your company’s best customers. The loyalty programs are also an effective way to build solid relationships.

If you don’t already have a loyalty program, it’s an excellent idea to establish one, for this simple reason: it costs more to acquire a new customer than to retain one you already have. In fact, the most important order you ever get from a customer is the second one because a two-time buyer is at least twice as likely to buy again as a one-time buyer.

For competitive businesses, having a loyalty program is a must. This can be accomplished more easily than you might think. Frequent mailings or promotions can be as simple as a postcard or a "Preferred Customer" programs that qualify customers for special discounts or premiums. (This is the concept behind those "frequent buyer" programs.) These mailings become even more impactful when you personalize and/or customize your messages. Building customer loyalty is important because customers have a lifetime value. If a customer spends $500 over a course of one year and likes your product enough to keep purchasing it, that annual sum returns each year, so, ultimately, this customer could be worth thousands to you.

Loyalty programs work as strategic tools, building relationships, loyalty and therefore, profits. Once you've got them, build customer loyalty. You can use your customer database to build a strong customer/client loyalty program. Targeted Direct Mail is an effective way to:

Let customers know about new lines of products that the company is planning to introduce that will be of special interest based on your knowledge of their buying needs and patterns.
Announce a "Customer Reward Program."
Let customers know about sales events that are open exclusively to them.
Private sales and pre-sales events.

You can also leverage your loyalty program to:

Bring in other business people who you know would share your customers' interests.
Explore other options and similarities of profiles that would raise brand awareness and equity to create a “shop-here-first” attitude.
Utilize a Direct Mail customer satisfaction survey to keep in touch with customer and client needs.
Provide continuity programs.
Show your customers their opinion is valued through questionnaires and customer satisfaction surveys.
Use customer feedback to build better products/ programs and help you develop a more accurate customer profile.

Today, you can also use database information to assign a value to a customer. Create a multi-tiered customer list (A,B,C,D) and differ the offers to each. It also allows you to prioritize your marketing budgets according to the value (or potential value) of each customer group. Built-in incentives and reward programs ("Gold," "Silver," etc.) can motivate customers to move up to the next level.

What Loyalty Programs can do for your business:

Keep your customers informed through ongoing communications.
Keep your customers informed about private sales events.
Cross-sell/up-sell customers who are already responsive to you.
Give your customers “feel good” perks and special benefits.
Provide continuity programs.
Reward them – show them that their opinion is valued (questionnaires/satisfaction surveys).
Provide you with customer feedback to build better products/programs.
Help you build a more accurate customer profile.