Loyalty programs are crucial for establishing strong brand relationships, with 71% of consumers acknowledging their importance too. Surveys have found that having a customer loyalty program can help eCommerce businesses increase their average order quantity by almost 319%.
But just setting up a loyalty program on your site is not enough to entice customers to join it as customers. They need to feel the value of the program before they make a decision to become a part of it.
This blog outlines effective strategies for encouraging your Shopify store visitors to sign up for your customer loyalty program.
How to get more sign-ups on your customer loyalty program?
While there is no one said way to drive in loyalty program sign-ups, here are some tactics we encourage brands to follow:
1. The loyalty program must match the brand’s personality
A loyalty program is an extension of a brand’s overall personality and should, therefore, align with the brand’s values, messaging, and overall tone.
If the loyalty program does not match the brand’s personality, it may confuse customers and create a dissonance between their perception of the brand and the loyalty program.
By ensuring that the loyalty program matches the brand’s personality, it can strengthen the brand’s identity and build a more loyal customer base encouraging more loyalty program signups.
Also, a well-aligned loyalty program can help differentiate the brand from competitors and foster a unique brand experience that resonates with customers.
Think about Sephora and H&M and how their loyalty programs stand out and continue to attract both online and offline shoppers.
2. Advertise your customer loyalty program online and offline
Promoting your customer loyalty program both online and offline can get customers to sign up for the loyalty program.
Online promotion can help reach a wider audience through social media, email marketing, and website banners. Offline promotion can help engage customers in physical locations through signage, flyers, and in-store displays.
By utilizing both online and offline channels, businesses can create a cohesive and comprehensive marketing strategy that reaches customers through multiple touchpoints.
This can increase the chances of customer engagement and loyalty program signups, leading to a more loyal customer base and increased revenue.
3. Simply the sign-up process
If the sign-up process is complicated or time-consuming, customers may become frustrated and abandon the process. This can lead to missed opportunities for customer engagement and reduced program effectiveness.
By keeping the loyalty program signup process simple and streamlined, businesses can increase the chances of customer enrollment and encourage ongoing participation in the program.
This can ultimately lead to increased customer loyalty program signups and higher revenue for the business.
4. Leverage social platforms for extensive reach
Social media provides a platform to share exclusive offers and rewards, which can incentivize customers for loyalty program signups.
By promoting the loyalty program on social media, businesses can showcase the benefits of the program and share customer success stories, which can help build trust and credibility.
5. Provide incentives to consumers
Offering incentives in customer loyalty programs is important to increase loyalty program signups because it provides customers with a clear and tangible benefit for enrolling and participating in the program. Incentives can include rewards such as discounts, free products or services, exclusive access, and other benefits.
Here are some ways to offer incentives for increasing loyalty program signups:
- Offer a welcome gift or sign-up bonus when customers enroll in the program.
- Give customers a discount on their first purchase after joining the program.
- Offer exclusive access to special products or services that are only available to loyalty program members.
- Provide customers with free shipping or other perks for joining the loyalty program.
- Offer rewards for completing certain actions, such as making a purchase or referring a friend.
- Give customers points for their purchases that can be redeemed for discounts or other rewards.
6. Add originality and creativity
One of the most crucial factors in setting up a successful customer loyalty program is originality and creativity.
When a business incorporates unique and creative elements into its loyalty program, it not only differentiates them from its competitors but also keeps the customers engaged and interested in the program.
A creative loyalty program can make customers feel valued and appreciated, which can build customer loyalty and offer increased retention. By offering unique rewards or experiences, a business can make its customers feel special and incentivize them to continue doing business with the company.
7. Utilize QR codes
QR codes provide numerous benefits that can make loyalty programs more efficient and effective.
They offer convenience for customers, who can easily participate in loyalty programs by simply scanning a QR code on their smartphones. This eliminates the need for physical loyalty cards, making the process much more streamlined.
QR codes also offer real-time tracking of loyalty program participation, allowing businesses to analyze customer behavior and make informed decisions to improve the program.
8. Incentivize with a bonus-point event
A bonus-point event is a loyalty program strategy that incentivizes customers to earn more points by offering a limited-time promotion where they can earn bonus points for certain actions, such as making a purchase, referring a friend, or engaging with the brand on social media.
Make sure you have a system in place to track the bonus points earned by customers during the promotion period. Once the promotion period is over, reward customers with the bonus points they have earned.
9. Seek and incorporate customer feedback
Feedback is an important tool that can help you improve your customer loyalty program. By soliciting feedback from your customers, you can gain valuable insights into how they perceive and interact with your program.
This information can help you identify areas where your program may be falling short of your customer’s expectations or where it could be improved to better meet their needs.
10. Launch your loyalty program via your email list
Email marketing is a powerful tool for promoting a newly launched loyalty program. By leveraging your email list, you can reach out to your existing customers and educate them about the benefits of your program ultimately leading to increased loyalty program signups.
Start by crafting an engaging subject line that will grab your subscribers’ attention and entice them to open your email. Once you have their attention, provide them with a brief overview of your program, highlighting the key benefits and any special offers or promotions that are available exclusively to program members.
Consider including customer testimonials or success stories to help illustrate the value of the program.
11. Make the customer loyalty program rewards easy to earn
Customers are more likely to participate in a program and remain loyal to a brand if they feel that the rewards are attainable and meaningful.
If the rewards are too difficult to earn or are not valuable enough, customers may become discouraged and disengage from the program, or worse, turn to competitors who offer more attractive rewards.
By making rewards easy to earn, businesses can help to incentivize customer behavior and encourage ongoing engagement with their brand.
12. Launch a mobile app for your loyalty program
Launching a mobile app for a loyalty program is becoming increasingly important for businesses, as more and more customers are relying on their mobile devices to manage their lives and make purchasing decisions.
By providing a mobile app for their loyalty program, businesses can offer customers a convenient and user-friendly way to do loyalty program signups, earn and redeem rewards, track their progress, and access exclusive offers and promotions.
A mobile app can help to increase customer engagement and loyalty by providing a seamless and immersive brand experience that extends beyond the physical store or website.
13. Incentivize your sales assistants to promote your loyalty program
Sales assistants are often the first point of contact between a business and its customers, and they can play a crucial role in educating customers about the benefits of the loyalty program and encouraging them to sign up.
By providing sales assistants with incentives to promote the program, businesses can help to ensure that they are fully engaged and motivated to drive program enrollment and participation.
Incentives can take many forms, such as bonuses, commissions, or recognition programs, and they can help to reinforce the importance of the loyalty program as a key driver of customer engagement and retention.
14. Stores need to be involved in promoting a loyalty program
Stores need to be fully involved in promoting the program and educating customers about its benefits. This can include displaying program materials prominently in-store, training staff to discuss the program with customers, and providing incentives to encourage loyalty program signups.
By involving stores in program promotion, businesses can help to ensure that customers are fully aware of the program and motivated to participate. This can lead to increased program enrollment, higher levels of customer engagement, and ultimately, greater loyalty and repeat business.
15. Set expectations accurately regarding what customers will receive when they sign-up for your loyalty program
When a customer does a loyalty program signup, they are agreeing to share their personal information and make a commitment to the brand.
If the program fails to deliver on its promises or the rewards are not as expected, it can lead to disappointment and frustration, which can ultimately damage the relationship between the customer and the brand.
By setting accurate expectations, businesses can help to build a strong foundation for customer relationships, ensuring that the customer is fully aware of the benefits of the program and the level of rewards they can expect to receive.
16. Personalize your customer loyalty program
By tailoring the program to the individual needs and preferences of each customer, businesses can create a sense of exclusivity and make customers feel valued and appreciated.
Personalization can take many forms, such as personalized offers, rewards, and communication channels.
By collecting data on customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history, businesses can gain insights into each customer’s unique needs and preferences, which can be used to create personalized experiences that are more likely to resonate with them.
17. Train your employees to pitch the customer loyalty program
By training employees to pitch the loyalty program effectively, businesses can ensure that customers are fully informed about the program and motivated to participate.
This can help to increase enrollment and engagement, as well as drive repeat business and customer loyalty. Employees who are well-versed in the benefits and features of the loyalty program can better communicate its value to customers, which can help to build trust and credibility with the brand.
This can ultimately lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and advocacy.
Finally, by empowering employees to promote the loyalty program, businesses can create a sense of ownership and accountability among their staff, which can help to foster a positive workplace culture and improve employee engagement.
Conclusion
Developing a successful customer loyalty program requires addressing the question of how to increase customer loyalty, as this can significantly impact a business’s revenue, reputation, and loyalty program signups.
E-commerce is a dynamic industry, and failing to keep up with trends and customer preferences can result in a loss of market share.
E-commerce businesses should continuously look for some best customer loyalty program examples, experiment with their approach, measure their performance often, and work towards getting more loyalty program signups because it helps them improve their customer acquisition and retention strategies.
Make your loyal customers feel special with Appstle’s customized loyalty program.
Appstle, a Shopify customer loyalty app, is a full-service loyalty solution that offers impactful loyalty programs tailored to the product and store. It also provides customized loyalty redemption and seamless integration across points of sale and social media platforms for a true omnichannel experience.
