6 Elements for Creating an Effective E-commerce Loyalty Program
A well-planned customer loyalty program can significantly boost the conversions of your online store. It helps you reduce cart abandonment, retain customers, increase repeat purchases, gain more revenue from current customers, and increase the average lifetime value of a customer. The type of loyalty plan you choose can depend on your business type, but there are some common elements that successful e-commerce loyalty programs share. We discuss these in this article.
Elements of a Successful E-commerce Customer Loyalty Program
Make Your E-commerce Loyalty Program Easy and Quick to Join
Make your plan easy and fun to join. Avoid using long signup forms. Usually, a simple signup form that just asks for the visitor’s name and email address works the best. Allowing people to sign up through other platforms, such as Facebook, can also help increase your conversions.
Make It Straight Forward
The last thing you want to do is confuse people with a complicated rewards structure that is hard to understand and participate in. This can cause frustrated customers and increased customer service inquiries. It can also cause a reduced join rate. So keep the rewards, points, and levels as simple as possible. For example $1 can equal 5 points. You can offer a reward, such as a drink, for joining. You can also give the reward for an event such as a birthday, and for when the customer reaches a certain amount of points.
Ongoing Participation Should Be Easy
For customers, participating in your loyalty program and remaining active should be a breeze. They should be able to gain rewards without having to manage them. Customers shouldn’t need to use a coupon code or PIN. Let them participate by just logging in and using an app or card.
Create True Value
Don’t just offer something designed to get email addresses from visitors or something that just promises to send occasional coupons or discount offers. Create a truly valuable e-commerce loyalty program that will be enticing to customers and will pay off for them. The best rewards to offer are cash, free items, coupons, and rebates.
In most cases, participation should be free of charge. However, if your rewards structure offers exceptional value, such as discounts on travel and classes, then you might charge a fee. Partnering with other companies to create great offers can be a win-win for everyone. To get people curious, you can also add special mystery bonuses for elite memberships.
Encourage Continual Participation
Encourage continual participation by creating expirations for rewards. For instance, you can send out a reminder that customer points will be expiring soon, so they have to act fast. Also, consistently remind participants about their rewards and how they can earn more. The more that people participate, the more it will boost your conversions.
Give Participants a Sense of Progress
One way to encourage more participation is to create the opportunity for a user to advance to new levels or gain new rewards. Creating this sense of progress will help motivate your users. Give them a way to track their progress so that they can see how they are moving forward. Also, occasionally remind them to check their progress.
An e-commerce customer loyalty program is a great way to boost customer engagement and your revenue. Make sure yours is successful by including any of the above elements. Reward your loyal followers and keep them coming back for more!
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