It’s no secret that competition among online brands is increasing rapidly, making customer acquisition harder than ever. As a result, brands of the future won’t succeed with new customers alone; instead, they’ll need to make loyalty and customer retention a primary focus.
Loyalty guarantees the longevity of your business by offering captivating, personalized experiences to your best customers. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, brands with strong loyalty marketing programs grow revenues 2.5x faster than their competitors. And, loyalty programs make the majority (60%) of global shoppers more loyal to a brand according to our State of Brand Loyalty 2022 report.
But, it can be hard to build a program yourself or find a provider suited to your brand’s growth trajectory. You could switch from one partner to another, which entails more costs than you may expect, or you could invest in the right loyalty partner from the start.
The cost of switching
Loyalty doesn’t switch on and off; it requires time and resources to build and develop. While switching partners isn’t impossible — and often is worthwhile for rapidly growing brands — it can be cumbersome. You’ll need to spend time course-correcting and re-evaluating program design, structure, and targets.
You also need to consider the cost of launching a loyalty program without a strategy in place. Loyalty liability, campaign and perk choices, and ongoing optimization factor into the strategy of your loyalty program. Without expert guidance, you can end up offering shoppers more than you can afford. Or, you could create a program that doesn’t drive any new, desirable customer behaviors beyond the transactional. Strategic loyalty programs help you encourage shopper behaviors that align with your business goals, which often go beyond purchases.
Switching to a new partner also means taking time to vet vendors and gathering the necessary information to migrate customer data. It’s important to keep customers happy throughout the platform migration process, so you’ll need to make sure members’ points, VIP statutes, and other data can be used after re-launch.
Your business will succeed and grow, so invest in a loyalty partner equipped with the flexibility, agility, and scalability to help you reach your goals from the start.
Expect success
Choosing the right loyalty provider is imperative for any business’s success, but especially for small brands. As your business begins to hit benchmarks and face new challenges, your loyalty program should accommodate these changes accordingly.
It may seem simpler to “level up” your loyalty solution as your brand grows, but you’ll lose out on key foundation building and onboarding at the program’s launch. When created with your business goals in mind, a strategic loyalty program drives incremental revenue growth and continually motivates high-value customer behaviors.
What to look for in a loyalty partner
For small businesses, opt for a marketer-friendly solution with robust analytics and tech integrations.
Consider the following when vetting possible loyalty partners:
Strategic partnership
Your loyalty provider should act as a partner, not just a solution. Loyalty programs are industry- and business model-specific, meaning that your provider’s team should be able to use their expertise to help you create a winning program tailored to your needs.
While marketer-friendly solutions are easy to launch, manage, and troubleshoot independently, you may need additional guidance. Dedicated customer success managers (CSMs) can offer ongoing support and data-driven strategies to ensure you achieve your business goals as your brand develops.
Program customization and agility
Your brand’s relationship with customers is always evolving, and your loyalty program should reflect that. Choose a loyalty provider that offers a customizable, module-based solution; your program will remain agile and flexible without sacrificing speed to launch.
PLAE, a bespoke footwear brand, knew they needed a program as unique and customizable as their products. Their previous loyalty solution was limited to an on-site pop-up window, interrupting buyers’ path to purchase and resulting in low member engagement.
“We didn’t have a lot of flexibility or guidance,” says Blake Norman, PLAE’s Director of eCommerce. “We needed a partner that would strategize alongside us to construct a program tailored to both our brand’s aesthetic and business goals.”
After switching to Yotpo Loyalty and Referrals, the brand’s new program seamlessly weaves throughout the site, creating captivating experiences at every touchpoint.
A marketer-friendly solution makes it simple to design, launch, and optimize your program as your business grows — all without code, web development, or website redesign. You can test out strategies or launch new campaigns quickly and effectively.
Look for a loyalty partner that also offers advanced campaign scheduling, which allows you to automatically launch and end a loyalty campaign with ease. You can keep your program fresh and engaging — think a weekend-only offer or double-points campaign — without allocating more time and resources.
Seamless integrations
Choose a partner with a breadth of third-party tech integrations. Why? You avoid creating disparate experiences for loyalty members and gain access to valuable, multi-solution data. Whether you’re interacting with shoppers through email marketing, helpdesk software, or subscription services, you can easily offer personalized experiences for your best customers.
Working with a multi-solution tech partner can also create powerful synergies between other tools, like SMS marketing, referrals, and reviews. For example, you can incentivize loyalty members with points for leaving in-depth reviews that include user-generated content (UGC), like photos and videos. Turn your best customers into organic brand ambassadors by rewarding referrals, or send personalized product recommendations directly to your loyalty members via SMS.
ROI reporting and in-depth analytics
For many brands, it can be tough to overcome confirmation bias when it comes to loyalty. Without detailed information on customer behavior and ROI trends, it’s easy to assume customers would keep coming back without a loyalty program in place.
Choose a loyalty partner that offers comprehensive, real-time data on your program. Using a loyalty performance dashboard, you can optimize your program strategically and effectively while also measuring exactly how the program has influenced different customers.
Loyalty management and the risk of the wrong partner
eCommerce brands that don’t manage their loyalty programs with an experienced loyalty partner run the risk of damaging customer relationships which makes it harder to retain customers. A poorly designed or executed loyalty program can lead to confusion, frustration, and dissatisfaction among customers, who may choose to take their business elsewhere.
For example, customers may feel that the rewards and perks offered through the loyalty program are not tailored to their preferences and needs. This can lead to a lack of enthusiasm and engagement, which can ultimately undermine the effectiveness of the program. This can also alienate customers who have been loyal to their brand for a long time and feel that they deserve recognition for their loyalty.
The wrong partner can also make it difficult to gain insights from the data collected from the program. With the right loyalty data, eCommerce brands can gain a better understanding of customer preferences, behaviors, and buying patterns, which can help them to improve their products and services and increase sales.
Yotpo Loyalty allows brands to set themselves up for success with tailored rewards campaigns, VIP programs, powerful segmentation, and marketing automation integrations. Ready to start building your program? Request a demo.