The challenge for any loyalty program is keeping your members engaged. The early excitement of enrolling and participating in new programs can sometimes wane as members repeat the same earning actions to try and earn the same rewards.
And promotion overlays increase customer engagement in your loyalty program.
We’ve worked with some of the most iconic brands across several industries including CPG, Electronics, Telecom, Entertainment, QSR, Retail, and Financial.
And we have found how promotion overlays can elevate your loyalty program engagement levels by strengthening emotional connections, increasing program value, and managing financial liability.
Let’s look at how to use promotion overlays to overcome those challenges and get your customers engaging more.
The Challenge of Keeping Loyalty Program Members Engaged
Consider 81% of consumers say they’re more likely to engage with a brand if it offers an incentive.
Loyalty program rewards are one of the main reasons consumers sign up to be members.
New rewards excite members–having the opportunity to earn and spend points on something new gets a member’s attention and can drive program engagement.
The problem is that loyalty program rewards can be logistically challenging.
Finding that perfect reward that appeals to your program members that is consistent with your brand’s messaging and attainable is often difficult.
From the point of view of your customers, they are always asking themselves if they have enough points to redeem for that reward – and if not, how long it will take me to earn enough?
You’re always asking yourself if the physical rewards make financial sense for your loyalty program’s budget.
On top of all that you have inventory management considerations connected to physical rewards that can present their own set of challenges. How much do I need to order? What are order and replenishment lead times? And what are shipping and handling costs?
Add all those things up and it can be hard to find the right program rewards, let alone continuously finding new rewards to deliver ongoing program news.
There are other types of engaging offers.
For example, special “member only” offers are great and consumers love to get them, but we receive a lot of them, not just from loyalty programs but from email marketing and general advertising.
But the volume of “special offers” can sometimes diminish that special feeling that usually accompanies them.
Why You Should Use Promotion Overlays to Elevate Your Loyalty Program
This is how promotion overlays can help overcome the challenge of keeping your loyalty program members engaged.
Promotion overlays tied to your loyalty program let you deliver a “big news” message such as the chance to win a big prize. They are exciting for loyalty program members and keep things fresh.
And more members participating doesn’t translate to more costs because the prize or contest pool is fixed, so greater participation typically leads to greater efficiency, not costs.
Promotion overlays can easily be added to your existing loyalty program. There are many ways to integrate with an existing loyalty program, but in many cases integration isn’t necessary.
It’s easy to participate. Chance-to-win promotions are established, easily understood calls to action to program members and this translates to broad engagement.
Promotional overlays aren’t “engagement for engagement’s sake.” They’re “engagement with purpose” because they can be used to drive a variety of specific program objectives.
Types of Promotion Overlays That Increase Loyalty Program Member Engagement
Whether you want to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your existing loyalty program or ensure the long-term success of your new customer loyalty solution, promotional overlays increase member engagement to help you achieve specific program objectives such as acquisition, education, sales, advocacy, and point burn.
Some of the ways to achieve those program objectives include: Social kickbacks, trivia, digital rebates, and instant wins.
Social kickbacks encourage and reward members for socially following and sharing positive brand and program messages.
Trivia educates members about your products, services, and program updates, as ell as onboards new members.
Digital rebates add purchase driving rebate offers as an additional member benefit.
Instant wins drive program engagement frequency and new member acquisition.
For example, we helped 19 Crimes (an Australian wine brand) with its Infamous Insider Rewards loyalty program that offers many great ways to engage. Members complete tasks mapped out in the dashboard to accrue points.
Then they can use their points to receive prizes such as swag, VIP perks, and chances to win exclusive prizes. And the more they play, the better chance they must win various new prizes.
Remember to consider your key goals for a promotion overlay and choose a strategic solution type that meets those objectives.
Promotions drive brand affinity by offering unique and exciting ways to engage with your loyalty program. Cost-efficient rewards, coupled with chance-to-win promotions, encourage point burn and reward redemption and makes your loyalty program more valuable.
Promotions are a great way for your brand to collect zero-party data.
Consider that 87% of consumers would share personal information if their favorite brands offered a valuable loyalty program.
Engage Your Loyalty Program Members Through Promotion Overlays
You can see how impactful promotion overlays can be for your loyalty program. If 81% of consumers would engage with a brand when given an incentive, and 87% would share personal information if your loyalty program is deemed valuable, then the rest is up to you.
Understand your audience through identifying your demographic and leverage data to identify where your drop-off in participation lies. Then, align objectives and engagement tactics that help fill that gap and get your customers coming back to participate again.
Educating your members is a key piece of your customer engagement strategy and gamification adds a lot of fun to the overall experience.
If you need help with any of your promotions or would like to chat about any of your customer engagement efforts, please feel free to contact us here.
ebbo
ebbo helps brands achieve their customer loyalty goals with full-service, end-to-end solutions and also creates original educational content straight from the experts to help loyalty marketers stay on the cutting edge of customer engagement.