💬 In order to make a loyalty/rewards programs really thrive in performance for eCommerce brands, perks/rewards play a major factor (just like an 'offer' which works effectively as a strategy across other key acquisition channels).
These are just some of the core benefits/reasons why perks and rewards choice matter for top performing loyalty/rewards programs:
Naturally, few other benefits I haven't mentioned, but these three are core and should be a key motivator to keep in mind for marketers/founders.
💬 Having been in the world of eComm and direct to consumer businesses which have had loyalty programs (of some sort) that I've seen work well (especially from what I can see top brands do), these are some areas worth considering as optimisations.
Run various tests on waiving shippng fees - you can test based on certain SKUs, AOV cart amounts, timeframes such as for special seasonal campaigns, and many other variants.
A great way to motivate members to purchase more is to provide incentives like early access to new products (or even sales) before other customers.
Through segmentation and understanding traits like AOV for various tiered levels, run personalised offers through email marketing and even the likes of SMS.
Plenty of offer types you can test, like bundles, BOGO, free/threshold shipping, and more.
The good news is that there are great integrations between platforms like Klaviyo and loyalty/rewards program software like smile.io
A no brainer here, but sharing birthday reward offers (if you collect this info) is absolutely worth doing. I personally love the offers I receive from brands I purchase from.
Same goes for anniversaries, where you don't really need to collect specific info - you can run a special 'yearly' offer based on when the customer first-purchased a product from your store. Smart way to also 'win back' customers who may not purchased for a longer period of time.
Another great way to provide value and encourage buying behaviour is by offering special discounts/perks with other complementary brands.
This strategy can work really well when your brand is also listed as a perk on their program.
Whilst you should provide excellent support for all your customers, depending on your brand and what you sell, you can consider highlighting 'priority' support.
It's important to angle/message this 'perk' in the right way, but it's a potential tactic worth trying.
A great way to keep engagement strong through using 'surprise' based tactics is running surprise monthly "drops" - in other words, you run a monthly 'special' perk which isn't seen across the rest of the site.
Now, it's not a completely new strategy/tactic per se, but it's a smarter way to angle an initiative which drives engagement and people coming back to see what the "special drop" is.
Whilst many customers are motivated by monetary rewards, a way to get more support is by running special campaigns to help non-profits/charities which your primary customer segment would care about.
Helps with engagement, brand building, and also it's just an awesome initiative to do (more brands should be helping organisations for those who are in need).
A scarcity/FOMO technique to incorporate are similar to "weekend sales" and that is offering more 'points value' for certain timeframes.
For example, "Receive 2x points per $1 spent in the next 48 hours".
Many of the airlines and top household brands do this as part of their rewards/loyalty programs, and there's a reason why they do this so often.
