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Be More Than A Bookmark
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Most of the successful brick & mortar loyalty programs are
often created out of necessity.
Chances are, several stores offering the same products
suddenly decided to invade the same target market, and the
"been doing business since our grandfather" stores quickly
realized they now had to compete for the same customers who
didn't use to think twice about buying from them.
This same phenomenon can never be more parallel than when
running a store on the net: It takes customers practically
the same amount of effort to visit ANY website in cyberspace
(i.e. the same neighborhood), so you MUST give them a
compelling reason to particularly visit YOURS.
You think it's enough to tell them to "bookmark" your site?
Think again: Chances are, they've got another 2 megabytes'
worth of bookmarks, too -- and they've never had the chance
to visit most of them again.
4 Kinds of Loyalty Rewards
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Now that you're looking into ways to keep winning the
clients you've already won, here are the 4 kinds of "loyalty
rewards" that other businesses have successfully used, both
online and off:
1) Outright Discounts
Nothing convinces more people into buying something (or
somewhere) than the thought that they'd be getting more for
less.
So capitalize on this "I got a better bargain than everyone"
mentality by giving loyal customers exclusive "bargain
prices" for an entire year or more.
Give them a card (or a username & password) that they could
use to get discounts on ALL succeeding purchases made for a
year -- then give them the option to renew their card
privileges, either through more purchases or an outright
renewal fee.
2) Points Equals Products
But if you're not too keen on having too many people getting
too many products for marked-down prices, then consider
setting aside a number of items as giveaways, which loyal
customers can get after earning enough "points."
(Something those credit card companies are doing all the
time!)
Just award a proportionate number of points for each
purchase a client makes, then encourage them to earn more
points so they can get this or that for free.
At its best it will encourage them to make more repeat
purchases -- and help you get more marketing mileage when
you brand those giveaway items as well.
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