How To Re-engage Your Loyalty Program Members

Are your customer loyalty rewards program members actively engaged? Or have you discovered that a portion of the enrollees have not redeemed their points in quite a while? Perhaps they haven’t earned a meaningful quantity of points, grew bored with the rewards program, and simply gave up.

Many retailers have encountered this problem. Inactive memberships are often the result of loyalty rewards program stagnation. When retailers become lackadaisical, failing to update and promote personalized rewards for their members, program engagement declines.

In order to keep your loyalty program members engaged long term, you will have to regularly dedicate your time, and maybe even an employee, to manage, nurture, and promote your loyalty incentives. There’s no getting around it. Even if you automate your campaigns using the best machine learning A.I. on the market, you will always need to review the program data, assess which promotions are succeeding and which aren’t, and launch better campaigns that enable members to earn and redeem points in ways they appreciate.

The good news, however, is that while you strategize for long term success, you can implement tried-and-true re-engagement tricks right now to compel your inactive members to take immediate advantage of exciting promotions that they won’t want to miss out on.

In this article, we’ll go over the four most effective re-engagement tricks that will help you reconnect with loyalty members who have disappeared.

BIRTHDAY WISHES & REWARDS POINTS

Who doesn’t love a birthday surprise? For marketers, birthday emails can be an extremely effective marketing strategy to reinvigorate loyalty program engagement. The trick, when it comes to birthday emails, is to include an irresistible call-to-action, or CTA.

Birthday emails earn 481% higher transaction rates and 342% more revenue than other promotional emails, according to Rejoiner.com.

Try offering the recipient points as a birthday gift, and within the body of the email suggest a relevant product they can purchase in order to earn enough points to receive their next available reward. For example, the happy birthday email could read:

“Happy Birthday, James!

Celebrate with our gift to you of…

50 Points!

Your next available reward is…

Free After Shave Balm (Organic Black Spruce Scent)

[Insert Item Photo]

You need 100 Points

Your current balance is now 85 Points!

Earn those remaining 15 points by purchasing any one of these men’s grooming products:

[Insert Photos of Three Items Relevant to James’ Favorites]

We hope to see you soon, and have a great birthday!”

Finding compelling ways to invite inactive loyalty members back into your store will do wonders for re-engaging them, and the Happy Birthday email is one compelling strategy that works.

POINTS EXPIRY EMAIL REMINDERS

Another compelling strategy to motivate your inactive loyalty members to come back is the points expiry email reminder. Let’s face it, it can be challenging for loyal customers to keep tabs on their rewards balance and where they stand in terms of earning the next available reward. When members are in the dark, it won’t matter if they’re only 5 points away from an awesome reward, and before long the opportunity to redeem will expire.

80% of shoppers reported growing to love a brand over time, 15% experienced love at first sight, and 7% committed after a glowing recommendation from a trusted source, according to InMoment.com.

You can foster love for your brand by sending out periodic emails to your loyalty members to keep them informed about their rewards balance. Include glossy images of products they can buy to earn points, and be sure to feature an attractive image of the next big reward that’s within their reach. A points expiry email could say:

“We miss you, Danica!

Don’t forget about your rewards points…

They miss you, too!

Your Points Balance Is

575

Redeem Your Points & Start Saving!

1,000 Points = Free Delivery & Shipping

1,500 Points = $20

2,000 Points = $25

[Insert Items to Buy & Their Points Values]

Your Points Will Expire In: 45 Days

Act Now & Redeem…

[Insert Item Photo of Their Next Available Reward]

We hope to see you soon!”

Points expiry email reminders are a great way to give inactive customers a reason to start shopping at your brand again.

CELEBRATE VIP TIER ACHIEVEMENTS

The verdict is in… People love celebrating! No accomplishment is too small to celebrate, but sadly, your inactive loyalty program members might not realize that. Believe it or not, even enthusiastic members aren’t necessarily on top of reviewing their rewards accounts, which means that they might not be aware they reached the next “rewards tier” of the loyalty program.

Roughly 90% of consumers considered themselves equally or more brand-loyal than they were a year ago, according to Yotpo.com.

It’s important to set up automated, celebratory messages, whether via email, SMS text, or in-app push notifications, so that your members receive congratulations with a clear CTA that will compel them to return to your store. If and when members fail to act on the congratulatory message and earn even more points within a few months, you can re-engage them with another message, such as:

“Congratulations, Avery!

You’ve reached the next VIP rewards tier, and now have…

2,000 Points!

Your delicious strawberry cheesecake-for-one is waiting for you at our location!

Need more reasons to swing by?

How about these awesome ways to earn 50 points?

[Insert Images of Pastries that Total 50 Points]

Satisfy your sweet tooth today at Sweet Dreams Bakery!”

Whether you contact your inactive loyalty members via email, SMS text, or in-app notification, keep the message fun and engaging, and be sure to include a CTA so that the recipients know exactly what to do next.

POINTS BALANCE REMINDERS AT CHECKOUT

Shoppers love helpful sales staff, and there’s nothing more helpful than a cashier who makes sure that a shopper’s rewards points do not go to waste. Loyalty members can easily become disgruntled when they realize they could have redeemed a reward at the checkout register, but the cashier didn’t remind them. In fact, this scenario is a contributing factor to members becoming inactive in the first place.

74% of consumers think knowledgeable in-store staff is important to their brand experience, according to Oracle.com.

Your customer loyalty rewards program should be integrated into your in-store POS system so that your cashiers see pop-up alerts on their POS screens during instances where the customers they’re helping have the opportunity to redeem rewards right then and there. The on-screen pop-up script that your cashiers can read to members could, for example, say:

“Awesome, Christopher!

You just earned another 25 points…

which means you now have a rewards balance of 1,000 points!

Would you like to redeem these points by adding one of the following products?

[Insert Three Eligible Products Relevant to Christopher’s Favorites]

If you’d like to think about it, be sure to redeem before the end of the week at any of our locations!”

Loyalty members will greatly appreciate the in-the-moment opportunity to receive a reward, and the excitement that goes along with it will motivate them to continue using the rewards program.

TURN INACTIVE MEMBERS INTO ENTHUSIASTIC ONES

The wants and needs of your loyalty program members are constantly shifting, and that’s due in part to changing trends and new products that appear on the market. They don’t call them “consumers” for nothing. As soon as people become aware of brand-new products, gadgets, items, and services, they start chomping at the bit, eager to eat up the latest offers–nom, nom, nom, yummy!

Retailers who shy away from analyzing market trends and popular promotional strategies often get left in the dust. Your customer loyalty rewards program can either work for you or against you, depending on whether or not you’re willing to update the rewards in a way that reflects what consumers want most now–not next month or next year, but today.

72% of consumers are more likely to sign up for a loyalty rewards program through a text message offer, according to RealDive.com.

Ready to get started? The loyalty strategists at Loyal~n~Save are always available to discuss what our customer loyalty rewards program, and its mobile app, can do for your business. If you want to improve customer retention and increase revenue, then reach out any time! Our strategists are pros at boosting rewards program engagement, no matter what industry a business operates within. Was this article helpful? Subscribe to our blog and be the first to know when we publish new content!