A loyalty program is a critical tool to help you increase customer acquisition, retention and advocacy. But it’s also a massive brand entity that can sometimes be a challenge to pivot, enhance or modify quickly.
That’s why many top brands supplement their loyalty programs with incentives like Chance-to-Win Sweepstakes, Offers & Rebates, Brand Advocacy and Gamification. Incentives are easier for you to maneuver and entice consumers to your brand.
Not only do they allow you to amplify your loyalty programs and achieve your loyalty objectives in a fast and flexible way but consumers love them because they’re fun, entertaining and shareable digital experiences.
These experiences educate, engage and drive purchases from your loyal customers.
Here’s why incentives can have a big impact on the success of your loyalty program moving forward.
Incentives Tied to Your Loyalty Program Can Elevate Member Engagement
Consumers are typically excited after they join a loyalty program.
Unfortunately, often that excitement can wane and it’s up to you to keep your loyalty program members engaged.
Incentives tied to your loyalty program can elevate engagement and increase brand advocacy because they’re fun, exciting and incentivize your members. They help spark emotional relationships with your customers.
Consider that 70% of emotionally engaged consumers say they spend up to two times or more with their favorite brands. And 81% of consumers say they’re more likely to engage with a brand if it offers an incentive.
The beauty of incentives is loyalty program members don’t have to jump through hoops to participate. They are moments in time for your brand and customers and complementary to your loyalty program.
Also, incentives help your brand acquire key data you can use to enhance customer engagement.
Incentives Create Excitement Around Your Loyalty Program
Consider that 80% of executives feel their brands understand the needs and desires of their consumers, while only 15% of consumers agree.
When members don’t understand loyalty programs, brands fail to receive full value from the features/functionality they’ve invested large sums of money into developing.
When members don’t realize the potential program value it lowers program engagement and increases the likelihood of them becoming inactive.
That’s where incentives offered strategically throughout the year can incentivize loyalty program members.
A good example of this is Redbox Perks. Redbox always wants to motivate its loyalty program members to participate in the services offered amid competing entertainment options such as streaming services.
Redbox’s solution was a Summer and Winter Spin–a twice-year program designed to engage Redbox Perks members.
When loyalty members access their Redbox Perks accounts, they are presented with a game board and a range of incentivized activities. Members complete each of the activities once to earn Instant Win Game plays and sweepstakes entries.
This has been a great way to engage loyalty program members with an incentive twice a year.
Schedule Incentives to Engage Your Customers Throughout the Year
At the end of the day, incentives are not meant to be complex.
Instead, they are fast, flexible, secure and engaging ways to amplify your loyalty program. They are easy to maneuver and create interest in your brand through engaging, time-sensitive vehicles that help you collect more valuable customer data.
Another key aspect of incentives is they’re designed to generate interest and awareness in your brand and lead to long-term loyalty. They also assist you with customer acquisition, email subscribers and social media followers.
For all these reasons, it’s important to schedule incentives strategically throughout the year to keep your loyalty program members engaged.
If your brand is looking to ignite engagement with member referral offers, think about repackaging them to draw more attention. For example, Victoria’s Secret repackaged the member referral incentives of its Secret Rewards loyalty program to make it more seasonally relevant.
So, it transformed the member referral into a “Secret Santa” gift and added excitement around it by saying the “Secret Reward” could be worth $10, $50, $100 or $500. This made Victoria’s Secret’s member referral offer seasonally relevant.
Encouraging loyalty program members to engage on your social channels is something you can do through incentives as well.
For example, an incentive called, IHG Rewards Club – Priceless Experiences Await, generates authentic consumer endorsements of the brand via its social media channels.
In partnership with Mastercard, IHG Rewards Club Members shared their respective stories through their eyes and posted photos of their favorite travel memories for a chance to win one of four curated Priceless Experience vacation packages.
This incentive served to organically promote IHG travel destinations on behalf of the brand.
Also, members of J&J Care Club Rewards receive loyalty points after sharing brand experiences on the company’s social media pages.
Use Incentives to Amplify Engagement Among Your Loyalty Program Members
Because incentives target goals such as customer acquisition, sales lift, customer brand advocacy and customer insights, they equate to “engagement with a purpose” because they can drive various business objectives.
It’s important to not only offer incentives just around the holidays but as a part of your ongoing loyalty strategy. If you strategically plan incentives throughout the year, you can magnify overall engagement, boost program membership and create more brand advocates.
If you’d like to learn more about amplifying your loyalty program with incentives, reach out to our loyalty experts any time.
ebbo
ebbo helps brands achieve their customer loyalty goals with full-service, end-to-end solutions and also creates original educational content straight from the experts to help loyalty marketers stay on the cutting edge of customer engagement.
