The Consumer Loyalty Promotion
The consumer loyalty promotion is still a way for companies to earn repeat business from customers. Whether it’s a coffee shop giving you your 10th latte for free, or an airline miles program that gives you a free ticket after 25,000 travel miles, consumer loyalty promotions are an effective way to bring customers back time and again.
Some of you may be old enough to remember the Green Stamps consumer loyalty promotion in the 60s and 70s and earlier. These consumer loyalty promotions actually started in the 1800s as a way to reward customers who paid with cash. Later, stamps were given to everyone who made a purchase. The stamps could be redeemed for store discounts, or for merchandise. The S&H Green Stamps were very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and anyone in their 40s and older can remember their parents’ or even their own collections of the green stamps.
Nowadays, rather than giving stamps, many stores just give discounts, but only if you’re a member of one of their consumer loyalty promotions. You show your little card — usually kept on a keychain — when you check out, and they give you a discount on your groceries. Spend enough money, and the reward is usually a discount on their gasoline, in addition to the initial savings. Most people, about 75%, carry at least one of these consumer loyalty promotions cards.
The upside of a consumer loyalty promotion is that you can amass all kinds of purchasing information about your customers with their permission. Want to know how many people have recently begun buying diapers? Or cat food? Or prefer certain brands of beer? Direct mail marketers love to know this kind of information, and will pay for your consumer loyalty promotions lists just to find out new ways to get your customers to buy their products.
But consumer loyalty promotions are not just about selling mailing lists. They’re marketing tools. They encourage people to come back again and again, to earn the rewards you’re offering after 10 cups of coffee, 25,000 miles, $100 spent at a grocery store. The rewards in consumer loyalty promotions are there for you to continually show why your customers need to keep coming back. They’re not just a trick; they show your customers again and again why you’re their provider of choice.
In fact, that’s the point about a good consumer loyalty promotion: you can keep track of your customers, reward loyalty with prizes and discounts. You can also figure out ways to convert your occasional customers to loyal customers, and your loyal customers to raving fans.
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, travel consumer loyalty promotions were all the rage. You got airline miles for flying a certain airlines, miles for staying in allied hotels, and could even double and triple those miles if you paid for the flight and night with your miles-earning credit cards. Some days it seemed like you needed a Ph.D. in customer loyalty management just to keep track of it all, but there were news stories of people who would take unnecessary flights just to reach the 500,000 mile platinum level for the next year.
If you’re thinking about setting up a consumer loyalty promotion of your own, be sure you give your customers something they want. It’s not enough just to give a discount, or a cheap piece of merchandise no one wanted in the first place, like the proverbial toaster for opening a new account. Figure out why your customers are there in the first place, and give them that. Sandwich shops give free sandwiches, airlines give free travel tickets. Give your customers something for free when they spend a certain amount of money or buy a specific number of items.
Referrals are another great form of consumer loyalty promotions. Customers are not just coming back themselves, they’re bringing their friends. If a customer comes to your store once a week and brings a friend who now comes once a week, that customer has actually doubled their value. They’re already fans, and by bringing in their friends, they will actually become more loyal to you and your company.
consumer loyalty promotions are a great way to not only thank your customers, but to market your company at no additional costs other than the rewards you gave out for your efforts.