7 Tips for a Successful Loyalty Strategy

A loyalty system has the objective to establish continuous and profitable relationships with customers however it doesn’t work alone. What separates companies that invest in loyalty programs and have success for those who not have?

The answer is easy: focus, analysis and targeted communication! Below are 7 tips that will help you create a successful loyalty strategy.

1. Identify and group your clients per similarities

Analyze the profile of your customers and assign the similarities between them. Group them in a unique segment. If you detected that your customer groups are different offer different value and communicate different message for each group. Are you doing this?

       2. Deliver a valuable and distinctive customer card

In the past software companies offered technologically advanced products and solutions that allow its customers to give card points depending on their customer transactions. The problem is that these points were assigned for exchanging a set of pre-selected products. Will the benefits that your customer card offers capable to retain your customers?

3. Develop a credible and achievable campaigns plan

Don’t waste resources creating campaigns that your client doesn’t values or inaccessible. The advantages of the campaigns have to be clear to the customer. He has to realize that by performing a certain action will achieve a benefit. The benefit offered and the level of interaction needed should vary proportionately.

Customer stays happy and fulfilled with a benefit of only 5% of what they spent or for getting just small gestures that make him feel important to you.

Can you imagine the little things that you can offer to your customer without having to pay?

        4. Embrace your loyalty strategy into your internal company culture

Your employees are the most important focus of your company. They are the ones that put it working and responsible for transmit a company picture. Offer them advantages and make them feel that they make part of your loyalty project.

5. Be where your customer is

If your client has a group, forum or presence on social networks communicate with him where he is and keep him with your customer loyalty system.

 6.Reward and Incentive your customer referrals

Have you thought to reward customers for bringing you new customers? If your customer loyalty program allow you to do this you're on the way to build a competitive advantage.

7. Communicate regularly with your customer through different channels and platforms

Today the majority of the Portuguese have a smartphone and access to the email through it. How about sending SMS to your customer delivering important messages and sending him an e-mail with the campaigns he has active? Did you know that 90% of SMS are read and 70% answered?

Communicate with the right people in the right channels. Are you doing this?

BONUS: Grow up with your customers

The most important tip you can get is to continue giving your customers an added value offer. After all if your customers grows and recognize your company as their partner it will also be referred and consequently grow.

New realities Local Retailers should expect

Do you know the New Realities of Local Retail?

There is more and more talk about digital and the physical and local stores.

Today more retailers share and start adopting their actions according to this new trend of reaching customers via both online and offline. And the results are not tricky. The conversion rate increased due to this new mobile era and smartphones usage.

From the study of Google and Nielsen about “Mobile Path to Purchase”, one of the main conclusions is the number of hours per week consumers spend researching on smartphones – 15 hours!!

This conclusion per se is enough to imagine and talk about these big changes which are currently, and will keep changing, consumers behaviors, with impact on local retail.

Nowadays, the first stage of the purchase decision process is mainly online. Consumers look for brand and product/service information online which impacts in-stores visits, as they stop visiting stores for this first approach. However, the majority of consumers keep purchasing offline. They keep going to the store but already with a product or service in mind to buy.

There is another study from Google – “New Research Shows How Digital Connects Shoppers to Local Stores” which we advise the reading because it helps to understand this exact aspect. How digital is helping increase conversions to and in-store.

One of the best case studies in retail, which is clearly taking advantage of this trend and evolutions is Sephora.

All these trends lead to something better and crucial to customers – customers’ experience. It may sounds weird but actually it is not about “where” customers buy but “how” brands can influence and make them buy at that precise moment. 

This leads to three new realities to local retail:

1. Digital drives in-store traffic

When talking about in-store traffic is related to online and offline. Even if customers in the first stage of the purchase decision making process prefer the internet for an initial research and to get some feeds and reviews on a product or service, it is still true that a great majority of customers afterwards go to the store to acquire what they want.

In terms of local search results, there is a study from Google that says one of the most important and valuable information for users is the “product availability at a nearby store” and of course the price.

2. Smartphones are in-stores assistants

This new era and evolution is taking us to a constant connected world with easy access to information. However, for retailers this is not that easy to translate when related to customers’ in-store experience.

Statistics from a “Mobile In-Store Research” study, from Google, show that customers who use their smartphones and mobile devices to search for more information about brands and products, usually go directly to their websites and apps.

Some of them actually prefer their own devices rather than ask directly to store assistants.

3. Omnichannel shopping requires omnichannel measurement and analysis

Omnichannel what?

This concept is basically related to this new trend and the fact that customers tend to search online, purchase offline, and vice-versa.

We are currently progressing to a multichannel and cross channel trend, i.e. to buy from several channels at the most convenient moment, on local stores or online.

But what about the quantitative analysis of the marketing activities?

It has been tough to retailers to accurately measure and allocate budget to digital marketing activities.

For some retailers is still difficult to understand the way digital drives in-stores traffic and the other way around, how the stores visits affect online sales.

To account for the real return on investment for digital marketing in the total sales it is crucial to consider a combined analysis of this two worlds – digital & local stores.

Only then it will be possible to ensure this return on investment is not undervaluing and the marketing mix decisions not suboptimal.

We should not disregard the future! We already live in a constant and on-the-go communication and connection to the digital world.

Read the full article here.

Loyty Smarketing!

How to take advantage of Beacon Technology?

Have you ever heard of Beacons?

These little gadgets have been tested for retailers in the United States and the results are impressive.

But will the beacons market survive? Will the retailers be able to implement strategies to increase sales in store?

Beacons are among the most important and recent mobile technologies that offer real advantages to retailers increase and win back sales.

The studies conclude that devices as beacons are the in-store technology which will present the biggest growth since de credit card readers. In the near future, it is expected a fast grow of the implementation rate. In the United States it is expected to reach 4.5 million active beacons by the end of 2018.

Beacons are available at a low-cost and they simply communicate with smartphones’ apps through a low energy Bluetooth signal. These devices will communicate with customers in store with the respective app and Bluetooth signal on.

Several statistics estimate that, globally, there are 570 million smartphones Android and Apple compatible with this technology. 

The BI Intelligence company deepened this study and came up with an extensive report where it identifies the advantages, best strategies to retailers and an outlook for the future.  

So far, it is proved that mobile notifications from apps based on localization and sent through beacons increases the involvement with the brand and subsequently in store sales.

Regarding 2015 and the following years, it is expected a significant increase in sales of the best and most well-known American retailers.

Additionally, the forecasts indicate an increase in the customers’ willingness to accept and use mobile notifications with coupons and discounts to redeem in store. This new technology combined with loyalty programs will be an excellent source for personalized communications (both online and offline) and reward strategies. Retailers will be able to also gather privileged information about customers’ behavior in store, their preferences and concrete needs.  

However, not all is rosy. Retailers to succeed with beacons will have to face the amazing challenge of educate their customers to download their app and accept to receive mobile notifications with campaigns and discounts from their brand.

Big retailers have already implemented this technology and devices in store and are currently learning and developing sales and communication plans to encourage this behavior.

According to these statistics and amazing results for the United States, it will not take long to European retailers start implementing and adopting the best practices of beacons on their own businesses.

We will keep an eye on this and share the most updated information and news.

Loyty Smarketing!

Loyty's interview to Económico TV

Loyty went to Económico TV

Last Thursday we went to Económico TV, a well-known news channel in Portugal, to present and talk about Loyty's business and what we offer to our clients.

We presented our solution as well as the most differentiated features and current clients with respective projects. Additionally, we unraveled our internationalization plan.

We took the opportunity to present our most recent version of Loyty, which was developed to answer the specific needs of the luxury market. This new version is already tested, implemented in some clients and available in the market. Click here to learn more about this solution and to contact us.

Watch the full interview, in portuguese, with our director here.

Stay tuned,

Loyty Smarketing!

3 Design errors that are slowing down your sales

In this article we will alert you for errors that may be committing your company’s website. Is your current website delaying revenue generation?

Too Many Photos, Not Enough Text

When you try to tell a story only based on product pictures, you are only reaching a small percentage of your audience.

Believe it or not, most people trust the text more than product images to make their final decision. Thus, many of your website images are completely ignored.

Consider the details of each product as the most important text that you will write on your page. This is where you can pass all the information about your items, giving buyers the knowledge they need to make informed decisions. This becomes especially important when selling similar products.

The example below shows it:

At first glance, all products look alike and even images’ text doesn’t help that much. A potential client need to know, at first sight, what’s the product, and then realize that descriptions differ from each other.

Too Many Options

It’s probably at this point that Amazon comes to our minds. After all, even this internationally renowned company has EVERYTHING in its page! - From cookware to romance books, from yoga pants to bits.

If every rule needs an exception, this is the perfect example.

However, although being an exception to the rule, the truth is that in most cases, too many options only serve to paralyze potential buyers.

If products featuring on the page even match a broader category, despite their differences, the scenario becomes even worse.

For example, notice the jeans from Hot Topic page (image below).

  

Skinny jeans, shorts, jeans and even skirts arise as result of one search.

Then notice how Torrid has solved this problem.

Filter, design quality, product images at the top of the page, all these elements facilitate the actions of the buyer, reducing search time.

Instead of having to do an infinite scroll page, bumping with dozens of items that do not match with what you are looking for, visitors can directly find the product they love.

Too Many Websites

This is a strange situation that happens when an already established company decides to start a e-commerce division.

Consider Thermos company. A quick search for mugs presents results for vacuum flasks and directs buyers to Thermos.com site, as you can see in the example below.

Thermos site looks and works just like an e-commerce site with pictures, menus, and product description. But here is a small link in the corner which says 'Buy'. And when clicking, it will pop up a completely new site.

ShopTermos.com site is actually the site to order online products. This means that if you find what you seek on the website Thermos.com and try to buy it by clicking 'Buy', you must rescan the desired product in the second website.

Result? Most likely buyers will not stay long on your site.

Loyty Smarketing!