13 Fail-Proof Techniques to Increase Loyalty Program Signups

One of the biggest challenges for business owners, especially retailers, is figuring out how to boost customer engagement and get people more involved.

Of course, many of them will have a loyalty program in place to reward customers, retain them, and generate repeat sales.

Big brands usually have their ways to increase signups, but what about the loyalty program for small businesses?

Only launching a loyalty program for merely the sake of it doesn’t add anything. You need an end-to-end loyalty management system (with tools) that not only helps to increase loyalty program signups but utilizes technology and data to measure the performance, return on investment (ROI), number of signups, impact on sales, and so on.

This post is all about how to increase loyalty program signups with 13 proven loyalty strategies. Additionally, we have listed a few ways you can utilize technology and data to enhance customer experience through a loyalty rewards program.

Understanding Customer Expectations

Today’s buyers know what they want from their loyalty programs. Indeed, the value-conscious consumer is even changing their shopping pattern to find the capabilities and features they prefer in loyalty programs.

A report from Bond Brand Loyalty stated the top drivers of member satisfaction.

Here are five of them:

• Program meeting the needs
• Program should be enjoyable to participate in
• Program rewards/benefits must be appealing
• Program should be consistent with brand expectations
• Program makes brand experience better

Loyalty program operators and marketers need to make smart moves to channel customer spending, choice, advocacy, and retention.

Keeping exciting offers and simplifying the onboarding process is just the beginning. Personalization is the key to driving customer engagement. Customer loyalty rewards programs must also keep focus on delivering a positive emotional connection.

To make successful loyalty programs stand out, you’ll need to first identify the program type and its deliverables.

Loyalty programs typically fall into four main categories. These include:

Points-based – This loyalty program rewards customers based on the accumulated points on purchases, which can be redeemed for discounts or other rewards.

Value-based – Value-oriented loyalty rewards programs are similar to points-based ones; however, customers can earn points besides the purchase.

Tiered Loyalty Rewards – This type of loyalty program usually involves different levels of membership discounts or rewards that increases based on customer spending or engagement.

For example, you may offer 5%, 10%, and 15% discounts to customers with silver, gold, and platinum memberships, respectively.

Subscription – This reward system requires customers to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee to gain access to additional perks, benefits, and products apart from the regular rewards.

Designing an Attractive Loyalty Program: 13 Ways to Increase Loyalty Signups

Irrespective of whether you are launching a loyalty program for the first time or revamping it, a careful and strategic approach is a must.

Let’s explore.

1. Clear Value Proposition

Loyalty professionals and decision-makers must clearly state the value proposition for customers to sign up for loyalty rewards. In other words, why should your customers sign up, and why now?

For example, “Join now & become a gold member at no additional cost and claim a 15% discount for life.”

2. Simple Onboarding Process

A time-consuming and complex sign-up process will prompt customers to abandon the sign-up process. Keeping it shorter, simpler, and easy is the key to onboarding customers for loyalty rewards programs.

Look at your current sign-up form and analyze whether it is asking for too much information, like address, phone number, credit card, etc. Do you really need all of them to begin with, or just their email address? To quickly enroll them, you may also allow social sign-on options with Google, Facebook, etc.

3. Multiple Sign-Up Channels

Even the best loyalty programs can fail if they are not promoted well and facilitated at several touchpoints. Loyalty program marketing plays a key role in increasing loyalty signups for businesses.

Here are some key channels to consider:

i. In-Store Signup

The best way to increase loyalty signups for retail is to keep display signage at the checkout and also show program information throughout the store’s visible points. Mention the benefits of joining the program and a clear call to action.

ii. Website

Another great place to market your loyalty program is your website. You can create a QR code that, upon scanning, takes your customers directly to the landing page that lists the sign-up process, registration form, and benefits of joining.

iii. Employee Advocacy

Encourage the store manager, sales associates, and other staff to share and promote program information with customers wherever possible.

For example, let’s say you tell a customer at the checkout that their total bill is $50. You could let them know that if they sign up for your loyalty rewards, they can get the bill down to $42 and that the sign-up process is quick.

Additionally, you can run weekly or monthly competitions among staff to see who gets the most signups and reward them as well.

4. Instant Rewards

Customers value convenience above all else – they want everything from signups to rewards to be simple and hassle-free. If your loyalty program requires them to wait or accumulate points over time, you risk losing their interest.

Keeping loyalty rewards instant and easy to redeem is the best way to increase loyalty signups for your retail store(s).

5. Exclusive Member Benefits

Incentives do not fall under a one-size-fits-all structure. Mainly because consumers have different motives to sign up for loyalty rewards. Many would like to collect points for a discount and cash back, whereas others would want to claim exclusive benefits.

Ensure that your loyalty rewards offer exclusive access to special products or services that are only available to exclusive members. You may want to capitalize on the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) technique for non-members to register and start receiving exclusive membership benefits.

6. Personalized Offers

Tailoring your loyalty rewards program to meet the needs and preferences of each customer is important to increase signups.

The best way to personalize your loyalty rewards is by collecting data on customer behavior, preferences, and purchase frequency.

For example, offering an exclusive discount on cigars to a cigar enthusiast or allowing extra reward points on baby products to a woman who is expecting. This may include emailing them unique deals and discounts on their birthdays or anniversaries.

7. Gamification Elements

This has been a favorite of loyalty professionals and decision-makers to boost loyalty signups for businesses.

Gamification elements create memorable experiences as they solely focus on fun and competitiveness. Game mechanics target human desires to compete, succeed, and earn rewards. This may include earning badges, unlocking achievements, completing targets with colorful progress bars, and participating in competitions and challenges within your loyalty program community.

Gamification is seen as one of the best ways to increase loyalty signups for retail stores, as it makes your program look less like a transactional rewards scheme.

8. Referral Bonuses

Rewarding customers for their efforts outside the transactional cycle can help you build a genuine and long-lasting relationship. Referrals are also one of the ways to increase loyalty signups for retail stores.

You may choose to offer bonus points or other incentives when they refer their friends or family members to sign up for your loyalty rewards program. A few businesses also reward for choosing positive lifestyle or environmental choices, such as staying healthy/fit, planting a tree, or reducing plastic usage.

9. Tiered Membership Levels

The loyalty rewards program that offers a tiered rewards structure performs better and generates a higher ROI for businesses than programs with no levels.

Tiered-based incentive programs help people make progress and achieve goals, for example, becoming a silver member upon signing up, then reaching gold at 50,000 points and platinum at 100,000.

10. Engaging Marketing Campaigns

Omnichannel loyalty program marketing can make your program more valuable and give your customers a better experience. Marketing leaders can integrate customer loyalty rewards programs into various marketing channels such as:

Homepage pop-up banner: Use your website homepage banner to showcase program highlights and benefits and make it easy for site visitors to sign up.

Program page: Dedicate a page explaining program benefits, tiers, and reward structure.

Product pages: Explain how product purchases can translate into earning points, discounts, and other rewards.

11. Social Media Integration

Businesses can leverage social media to increase loyalty signups. Once or twice a week, you can share a post about your loyalty rewards program on your social channels. To build trust and attract new members, you may share testimonials, success stories, how the program works, its benefits, etc.

To engage customers and encourage participation, you can run various marketing campaigns such as promotions, contests, etc. Allow them to share their experience and the benefits of enrolling in your loyalty program to create a lively loyalty program community.

12. Mobile App Accessibility

Unlike traditional sign methods, your mobile app can simplify the sign-up process by offering social media login and phone number verification. A mobile integrated loyalty program can pave the way to increase loyalty program signups for your business.

Offering loyalty program benefits and mobile-exclusive features to tech-savvy consumers can be a game changer for your program. You can utilize push notifications to send personalized offers and updates in real-time to keep your audience engaged.

13. Feedback Mechanism

To ensure the success of your loyalty and rewards programs, it is a must to measure and optimize the program from time to time. And the best way to go about it is by taking surveys, getting feedback from your customers, and checking engagement metrics.

Until now, we have seen the best ways to increase loyalty signups for businesses, and these programs are used for both retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones.

A report provided by Antavo reveals a notable shift in business priorities, with companies increasingly focusing on customer retention over acquisition. The report also stated that 27% of a loyalty program’s marketing budget is dedicated to customer loyalty and customer relationship management (CRM).

Let’s explore some of the marketing strategies used by companies and how they plan to revamp their loyalty program.

Effective Marketing Strategies for Loyalty Programs

Creating a successful loyalty program starts with a well-thought-out strategy.

Here are key strategies to help you design a program that drives customer engagement and loyalty:

1. Define Target Audience

Defining your audience is the primary step in building a loyalty program. Starting from your perks, rewards, CRM, loyalty technology, marketing, budget, and key performance indicators (KPIs) must be designed accordingly.

To attract a wider audience, you may consider launching a program that includes both free and premium elements. With this strategy, your program will see maximum participation from the members who wish to join free, and the ones who want additional perks or privileges can join the paid membership.

2. Utilize Content Marketing

Whether it’s your website, social media channels, or in-store displays, make sure that your content is action-driven and engaging. It should always align with your brand while showcasing value-driven benefits.

3. Leverage Social Media Platforms

You can share engaging content on social media and encourage customers to participate in the program by running sign-up campaigns, offering membership benefits, sharing customer success stories, and more. Use social media tools to monitor sentiments by tracking mentions of your loyalty program, reach, and engagement potential to know how your customers are feeling about your brand and loyalty program.

4. Implement SEO Best Practices

Right from building a Google Business Profile to local listings to publishing content on a website, you must consider implementing best SEO practices to rank your loyalty program above your competitors. You may want to consider using tools like Google Analytics to measure performance & monitor other metrics of your loyalty program.

5. Use Email Marketing Campaigns

Sending newsletters with offers, program benefits, and a clear call to action is a crucial marketing strategy used by marketers to encourage customer participation. You can run A/B testing for offers and signups and use data to analyze and identify what is working well with your audience.

Tip

With Loyal-n-Save, you can monitor campaign performance, track new signups, view the effectiveness of deals & more. Learn more now!

6. Offer Promotions and Discounts

Each customer has different preferences. Some may want rational benefits like points, savings, and rewards, whereas others may be looking for emotional elements like personalized experiences and exclusive access. You can begin with enticing welcome rewards. Then offer promotions and discounts that drive initial transactional engagement to boost your loyalty rewards program.

7. Conduct Market Research

Conducting research is a great way to gain insights about your customers’ behavioral shift as well as other loyalty programs launched by your competitors. Such a report and analysis of market research can help you to utilize predictive analytics to craft future offers and drive customer participation.

8. Engage in Influencer Partnerships

Social media is used by most marketers, which makes it a buzzing platform to grow your rewards program and reach more people. One of the effective marketing strategies is to consider collaborating with influencers and leveraging their followers and social presence to reach out to potential audiences for participating in your loyalty program.

9. Focus on Customer Retention

Businesses are keener to spend more on retaining existing customers than to acquire new ones. Increasing investment in retention helps businesses to increase repeat purchases and reduce customer churn rate. Best customer loyalty programs in retail focus on customer retention with great offers and rewards.

10. Utilize Data Analytics

By utilizing data analytics, you can collect data on customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history to understand customers’ unique needs. This can further be used to create personalized experiences and boost loyalty rewards program participation.

11. Create Compelling Visuals

As a part of your loyalty program marketing, all the visuals you keep, whether it’s for in-store displays, social media posts, or banner images for website blogs, must be appealing and should excite customers to take respective actions.

12. Host Events or Webinars

Customer loyalty rewards programs are all about keeping your customers engaged with your brand. You may consider hosting events at your business premises to draw engagement for loyalty rewards or conducting a webinar on a specific topic that might be of interest to your customers. Such activities may see an increase in loyalty signups for your business.

13. Optimize User Experience

Whether it’s your website or mobile app, you must optimize user experience by understanding how your customers interact with the app or site. It is the best loyalty program marketing strategy, as it keeps your users more engaged, better understanding your product, and more likely to return for rewards, in-store or online purchases, etc.

Wrapping Up

We hope that this guide has helped you in your quest for how to increase loyalty program signups.

As we have seen, there are many factors that play a major role in increasing signups, from customer retention and acquisition to balancing rational and emotional elements, utilizing loyalty technology and marketing strategies, and considering a premium and/or subscription program with a free element.

Determine your target audience and tailor your loyalty rewards program to increase loyalty signups for your business. To be recognized as one of the best loyalty programs, remember to carefully craft it, execute it, and, most importantly, the loyalty program for small businesses must be value-driven.