Author: Zhen Yang Yap

The existence of a loyalty program is primarily to increase a customer’s interest to keep returning time after time. Easy said than done, but how can retailers create value in their loyalty programs to captivate the attention of their customers to participate? Your loyalty programs should be designed based on your customer’s behaviour whether in-store or in their own home, and the designed strategies to keep them coming back.

1. Laser Targeting Segmentation. There is no point investing in attraction a customer segment who does not favour loyalty programs. For an example, if you are using a digital loyalty program, the millennials might be all for it, but on the other hand the baby boomers might find it too complicating and would only use plastic loyalty card as a vehicle for loyalty reward redemption. Therefore in the initial stage, its vital to focus on group of customers whom are most influential on your business.
   
2. Customized Individual Experiences for Customers. Basics. Always, always prioritize what the customers want not what the retailers need. A well crafted loyalty program should always give what the customers want, consistently and accurately. Recognizing and rewarding customers basing on their shopping habits does not only inculcate and increase your brand awareness but also explicitly expressing to your customers that you value them as loyal customers. Loyalty programs now days need to look beyond just monetary rewards but into deepening personalization on relationship, captivating engagement to customers to be wanting to return to your shop to be recognized and rewarded.
3. Consistency is Data Analytics. Loyalty programs must be based on data collected to be

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS: DATA IS AT THE HEART OF ANY WINNING LOYALTY PROGRAM

The ultimate goal of any loyalty program is to provide a compelling value proposition that keeps consumers coming back time after time. How can retailers create valuable, differentiated loyalty programs? Strategies should be driven by a deep understanding of your consumers’ shopping decision process, and then programs can designed to bring them back again and again.

Measure and monitor performance. Loyalty programs can be used to drive better business decisions, as well as to refine program offers. But to do both, loyalty program data must be tools for retailer learning. Research costs prevent many retailers from fully assessing whether their programs meet the objective of increasing consumer share of wallet, but the importance of data cannot be overstated and will only continue to grow. The future lies in integration—combining granular, internal loyalty data with rich contextual media and market data to make more insightful decisions.

Use segmentation tools. Understand which consumer groups loyalty programs really matter to and why. The execution of any loyalty program should allow for personalization and dynamic learning, but the initial design should be geared toward serving the consumers whose behavior will be most influenced, and a segmentation analysis will help identify those consumers.

Personalize the shopping experience. Winning loyalty programs understand that every customer is an individual and that success comes from giving customers what they want, not what the retailer wants. Program offers that are unique to the shopping habits of each consumer can not only drive brand affinity, but they can also send a signal to the customer that they are valued patrons. In fact, personalization deepens the shopper-retailer relationship, enhancing engagement and encouraging shoppers to return again and again to redeem their offers.

Provide offers customers value. Retailers need to use the breadth of data available through their loyalty programs and predictive analytics to identify the promotions to which a shopper is most likely to respond and to establish a one-to-one communications channel, providing shoppers offers they care most about in the channel they most prefer. While bigger families may be enticed by buy-one-get-one-free deals or stock-up offerings, older customers may prefer special savings days when store traffic is lighter.

Differentiate your offering. How is your loyalty program different than your competitors’? Give shoppers a compelling reason to visit your store rather than another. Consider exclusive rewards and in-store experiences that are unique to your location or brand positioning and make it engaging and fun to participate for all generations of consumers.

Leverage technology wisely. Advancements in technology and the proliferation of mobile devices allow retailers to provide more relevant, timely offers than ever before, and many consumers are enthusiastic about integrating their digital devices with loyalty programs. But a “build it and they will come” approach to digital integration isn’t that simple. Retailers must leverage digital tools that create value for consumers, and digital interactions must be aligned with how much or how little consumers want to be contacted. Consider an opt-in program, whereby consumers indicate the level of frequency they wish to receive digital Communications.

Consider non-monetary rewards. Financial incentives are a must-have, but non-monetary incentives are the differentiator of loyalty programs, and can build the relationship between retailers and shoppers. Retailers looking for ways to engage in more direct interactions with consumers could try rewarding members for referrals or interacting with the brand on social media. Even better, retailers could use their loyalty programs for brand building, incentivizing activities that fit with their brand image or expertise. For example, brands that want to establish or cement a reputation as a leader in the health-and-wellness space could reward consumers for meeting exercise or health goals, while those that want to solidify themselves as socially responsible could consider rewarding consumers for volunteering, making charitable donations or choosing more environmentally friendly options. Above all, programs should be aligned with the more important priorities and values of consumers.

What is it that retail customers are looking for now in a retail outlet? User experience is what they are looking for. People are calling it experiential retailing where owners are pushing to develop tangible products or even services which customers can touch and feel. Retail outlets are expected to take customers on a journey surpassing the old school ways of just purchasing but a total customer immersion within the retail outlet.

Building a well executed brick and mortar store will undoubtedly face unpredictability like connectivity, geographical coordinates, weather and general human error. It’s difficult, really difficult to build and develop a store which people intentionally want to hang out. This is of cause unlike online shopping, everything is controlled through your keyboard and clicks from your mouse which in comparison is much easier controlled and documented than the above mentioned unpredictability face in the real world stores.

It’s obvious that technology is required in solution to providing a much more immersive in-store experience. This merging practice of the physical and digital world requires a new angle of technology application.

It’s no more whispers that the people in the industry are preparing for the fall in retail industry. But they could never be this wrong., E-commerce may be growing at a rapid phase of 15% annually but brick and mortar would still hog up 70% of retail sales transacted 5 years from now. This directly represents an estimate of 0.85 cents of every retail dollar spent.  

Marketers are now equipping themselves with skills designed to combine retail brands in-store experiences with their online channels into one omni-channel experience. Their primary goal is to provide in-store shoppers a much higher lifetime value in comparison to those whom simply shops online. To ensure the success of an effective marketing strategy for the revolutionary of in-store retail experience, retail marketers must uphold these four ideologies, arranged in steps for easy guidance.

Step 1: Customer is King

Having to consistently engage the right customer with the right sales pitch of your product is definitely an uphill task. Uphill it maybe, but it’s not impossible. Everything begins with a step, and this first step would be the one your customer takes when entering your retail store. This type of identification is generally referred as ‘progressive profiling’. Retail marketers which consistently and diligently studies their customers journey in-store, streamlining prompts engagement with special moment usually build a much more lasting brand impression.

To be successful in this field, one has to thread the thin line of customer self-discovery and retailer supervision. But if done right, brand loyalty can successfully be achieved..

Step 2: A Technology which All Retail Employees Must Understand

No matter how effective the technology maybe in increasing in-store experience, if a retail employee fails to understand, implementation failure is imminent. Whatever the technology adopted, it must be flexible enough for all in-house staffs working in-store to use and introduce, but at the same time smart enough for owners to extract analytical insights of which customer is more loyal for example.  

The key difference between a successful system is the potential in providing retailers with actionable data in real-time. This real-time analytics provides employees the information and timing to better execute their job in bring active guides in every customer’s shopping experience.

Step 3: Tier 1 Retail Marketing, Bringing your Customers In-store

Irregardless of how magical your in-store experience is, with no customers walking through your front door, it’s as useless as can be. Thanks to the advancement of technology, the way customers find products is most likely to change drastically. Search engines are now encouraging people to question in specifics, with the ability to return direct answers for searches like “maternity outfits near me” or “best cafe near me”. This is where retail brands can build their online to offline presence, firstly by making themselves visible online.

Step 4: Tier 2 Retail Marketing, Understanding your Customers In-store  

Its not unusual for a retail brand to understand their customers behaviour online rather than in their brick and mortar retail outlets, where customers are right under their nose. Once a customer walks in-store, they practically are on stealth-mode.

So what other strategy could there be? The answer’s simple, the good old ‘Passion’. Create a hit on the passions of your customers, and you’re on to way to a potentially successful in-store strategy. Connecting to your customers basing on their passion whether through branded contents or events, when people engage with brands in these moments, they are explicitly stating that they are all so excited and passionate about the engagements.

Types of ‘Passion’ events which big brands have been using for years are such as HomeDepot’s workshops, Samsung’s Virtual Reality Events, REI Outdoors Events, Nike Run Club and Sephora’s Beauty Workshop. Now with the availability of at the forefront of the offline experience, retail owners can now strategically select guest lists and develop in-store engagement which captivates customers who are most likely to purchase.

It’s about time retail tech players start a massive disruption movement on this 20 trillion USD industry. All it needs is the right solution to come along to capture their stake of the market. EngageBlink has taking the spearheading role in South East Asia to provide solutions to the retail brand space enabling them to re-captivate in-store experience of their customers. How? by providing a Plug-and-Play marketing tool aimed to strengthen customer engagements by re-captivating in-store experience with real-time user information.