What is the Best Way to Inform a Customer About a Loyalty Program?

Once you’ve taken the time to design a fantastic loyalty program that constantly works for your business to retain more customers and build brand loyalty, the next step is to get the word out.

Whether you’ve just introduced a loyalty program and you want to spread the word, or perhaps you’ve had it for a while and registrations are starting to drop off, it’s always worth asking yourself “what is the best way to inform a customer about a loyalty program?”.

Here are a handful of highly effective techniques for expanding awareness of your rewards program quickly and easily.

1. Prominent signage

First and foremost, customers should be exposed to signage promoting your loyalty program at some stage of their interactions with your brand. Whether they are shopping in-store or online, it should not be possible for customers to complete a transaction without becoming aware of your rewards program.

From window posters and table brochures to blogs, e-newsletters and social media posts, there’s no shortage of ways to inform customers about your loyalty program.

2. Get your staff on-board

This point is more relevant to brick-and-mortar shops, so if you’re running an online business, feel free to skip ahead to the next point.

Your staff (particularly the ones at point of sale) are critical to the on-boarding process. As the face of your business, they are the ideal ambassadors for your loyalty program. Not only should they be supportive and enthusiastic about promoting your loyalty program to customers, but they should be well-versed in every aspect of how the program works.

The more you educate your employees on the perks and benefits, terms and conditions and other details of your loyalty program, the more effectively they’ll be able to promote it.

An upfront signup incentive helps this process, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Here are some things you can do to help your staff promote the rewards program:

• Observe how successful companies run their loyalty programs, and create a frame of reference for your staff
• Discuss the program during staff meetings, and encourage employees to go through the process of registrations so that they understand how it works
• Provide information about your loyalty program in the staff training process so that new employees learn how to promote it from day one
• Offer staff incentives for building registrations

3. Provide an upfront incentive

At Stamp Me, we’ve noticed that customers are 3x more likely to sign up for a loyalty program if there is an immediate reward.

The reward could be something for free, a discount, entering a draw to win a prize, joining the birthday club… the possibilities are endless. The more attractive you can make the incentive, the better.

4. Reward existing customers for referrals

By offering your loyalty program members rewards or discounts in exchange for referring their friends, you can rapidly grow your customer base at a rate that brings in far more revenue than what it costs to dish out a few extra rewards to your existing customers.

TransferWise has enjoyed immense success with its “Invite a Friend Program”, with rewards of up to £50 for existing cardholders. Customers acquired through referrals boast a 37% higher retention rate, and offer at least 16% more in profits than customers acquired through other means.

Also, customers who are referred to a brand are five times more likely to refer other people to a brand, so once the ball is rolling, it’s a self-powering machine!

5. Use social media to spread the word

Social media is a powerful tool for informing customers about your business’s loyalty program.

We recommend scheduling regular posts to highlight the various perks and benefits of signing up to the rewards program, as well as running occasional campaigns to build hype.

Perhaps customers win a prize for posting a picture of themselves on Instagram using one of your products. Now, you’re advertising your loyalty program to all of your customers’ followers, and you can rapidly expand your reach this way.

6. Mention your loyalty program in your e-newsletters

If you have a list of email subscribers, they are typically going to be the most likely people to join your loyalty program – so make sure you tell them about it! A simple “don’t forget to join our loyalty program for exclusive discounts and other exciting perks” at the bottom of your e-newsletters can go a long way.

7. Reward customers for user-generated content

User-generated content (or UGC) is any form of content – such as images, videos, text or audio – that has been posted online by anyone other than the brand itself.

Say for example someone posts an Instagram picture of their brand new Nike shoes. This is a form of promotion for Nike, even though the brand hasn’t done anything to incentivize the customer to do this.

But let’s say you did incentivize customers to create their own promotional content for your brand.

You could offer customers additional loyalty points and extra prizes for writing reviews, creating YouTube tutorials about your products, recording instructional guides, submitting feedback and countless other forms of content that benefit your business in one way or another.

This process creates brand ambassadors, which is the Holy Grail of customer loyalty. Brands within the cosmetics industry are particularly good at incentivizing customers to share, refer and engage.

According to Stamp Me’s Head of Marketing Michaela, “UGC is a highly effective way to use your existing customers to attain new ones. It also provides businesses with a wealth of data, which you can use to personalize each customer’s experience and accommodate their unique preferences.”

There is no single best way to inform customers about your loyalty program

What is the best way to inform a customer about a loyalty program? Get creative. Keep your promotional campaigns fresh and exciting, with exclusive competitions and random prize draws on social media – anything that creates a bit of hype and incentivizes signups.

At Stamp Me, we are always on the lookout for innovative new approaches to maximizing your loyalty program’s reach and impact. Check out the rest of our blogs for helpful tips and tricks to improve your rewards program.‍