Allcard | ALLCARD

Take your Customer Loyalty Programs to the Next Level

Feb 8, 2023

Every year, business managers and owners look for new ways to increase their brand’s revenue. They come up with all these clever marketing schemes to reach more people, get more customers, and sell more products. From crazy advertising campaigns to can’t pass off promotions and discounts, brands would do everything to increase their revenues to keep up with the increasing costs of everything.

Many of these strategies and ideas to acquire new customers can be hit or miss – making it a risky endeavor to increase a brand’s sales. These businesses miss out on the opportunity from the customers they already have. Particularly those enrolled in their loyalty program.

In a study conducted by Accenture, loyalty program members spend an average of 12-18% more per transaction than non-members. Bond Brand Loyalty found that loyalty program members are 5x more likely to remain customers. McKinsey found that customers enrolled in a loyalty program are 62% more likely to spend more. Finally, multiple studies show that it’s cheaper to sell to customers.

Increasing purchases from your most loyal customers can be a cheap, reliable, and effective way to increase your brand’s sales.

In this article, we’ll give you seven ideas on how to take your customer loyalty program to the next level.

Earn Points

Most loyalty programs are already point-based. Customers can earn points for each transaction/spend they have with a brand. Then they can redeem special discounts or items upon reaching certain point thresholds.

An excellent example of this is Starbucks. Each item you buy earns you a star. And once you reach a certain number of stars, you can claim a freebie.

Take this to the next level by switching how your customers can earn points. One thing you can explore is giving 2x, 3x, or 5x points on special days like birthdays or hallmark holidays. You can even give bonus points during slow seasons to stimulate sales.

Another idea you can explore is randomly giving bonus points to customers. This stems from the idea of surprising customers and encouraging them to buy repeatedly to get the same bonuses.

Mission-based Rewards
Aside from rewarding your customers for continuous purchases, you can start offering mission-based rewards. Simply, these programs revolve around rewarding customers who accomplish tasks you set.

For example, AIA Philippines (formerly PhilAm Life) incentivizes its clients to live healthier lifestyles. They give rewards for accomplishing different fitness and wellness tasks. One of their rewards is an upfront discount on their client’s insurance premiums.

You can also do this by aligning your brand’s values with different activities or advocacies. For instance, if you’re a clothing store that stands for women’s empowerment, you can encourage your customers to post a selfie a day wearing your clothes in exchange for discount vouchers.

Incentivizing customers who tend to spend more per visit is one way to encourage all your customers to spend more.

Spend-based Rewards

Most brands stick with point-system loyalty programs, which don’t really incentivize additional purchases or higher-value ticket items. This limits lifetime value growth and potential revenue per customer.

By rewarding your customers for more expensive transactions, you can increase their lifetime value and encourage them to spend more often.

One way you can do this is by offering rewards depending on how much they spend per transaction. For instance, if customers buy 10,000 pesos worth of products, you can give them a branded golf umbrella. But if they spend 20,000, they can get a free product worth 2,000 pesos.

Freebies

Speaking of freebies for your loyal customers, we think it’s about time to veer away from standard branded items like pens, shirts, umbrellas, and the like. Those items do not stand out, nor do they trigger recall.

So upgrade your freebie game by giving them something more distinct, practical, and enjoyable to own. For example, if you’re a bakery, you can give them an engraved bread knife if they reach a certain number of purchases in a month.

Subscription Programs

One of the things your loyal customers want is convenience and easy access to your products. That’s why offering exclusive subscription programs is an excellent way to up their lifetime value without continuously selling to them.

Subscription programs are initiatives where customers can sign up and get their products delivered regularly. For instance, if you’re a clothing retailer, you can offer your customers curated boxes based on their preferred style and color palettes. This way, they get a new set of clothes exclusively curated for them every month. And you’re getting a regular stream of guaranteed revenue from their subscription.

Community Partnerships

Consumers today have become more socially conscious. They appreciate brands that work with various community and social initiatives.

Take a look at Toms, the brand that promises to give one pair of shoes for every purchase you make from them. This advocacy made customers love buying from them since, aside from the functional benefits, they can also contribute to the community.

Look into what social initiatives your customers care about and try to partner with them. For restaurants, instead of throwing away unsold products, you could donate it to a feeding program.

Refer a friend rewards

Lastly, customer referrals is one of the activities that don’t get enough attention. Most loyalty programs are too fixed on rewarding customer purchases and nothing else. By running better referral programs, you can lower your customer acquisition costs (CAC) and increase the number of new customers.

You can grow your business without a fancy and expensive advertising campaign by rewarding customer referrals.

One of the things you do to encourage referrals is point sharing. This means if a friend you referred earns one point, you can get .25 points. So the more friends you refer, the more points you can earn!

Loyalty Programs can be highly profitable for brands. Done right, these initiatives can grow your business at half the cost. So, make sure you have the right loyalty program in place!

What are Remarketing Campaigns

Feb 8, 2023

Imagine walking into a clothing store and trying on a pair of shoes you love but ultimately deciding not to buy them. Days later, you receive an email with a special discount on those same shoes. This is the perfect example of a remarketing campaign in action.

By leveraging data and advanced targeting techniques, businesses can reach customers at the right time, with the right message, to increase their chances of making a sale.

Remarketing campaigns are an effective strategy to increase your brand’s sales by capitalizing on warm leads and existing customers.

In this article, we’ll dive into the world of remarketing campaigns and explore the various techniques and strategies businesses use to keep their brand top of mind, convert more customers, and ultimately drive more sales.

What are remarketing campaigns?

Remarketing is a powerful marketing strategy that allows businesses to engage potential customers who have shown interest in their products or services but have yet to purchase. By targeting these warm leads, brands can bring them back to their website and convert them into paying customers.

But aside from retargeting people who have shown an interest in a product, remarketing also applies to existing customers. Businesses can target their existing (and past) customers with personalized marketing campaigns to encourage them to purchase again from the brand.

The goal of remarketing campaigns is to either push warm leads into purchasing; or reignite the interest of past and existing customers to make another purchase.

Why are remarketing campaigns important?

Not everyone who steps into your store (or goes to your website) is ready to purchase. Often, these visitors are in the early stages of their buying journey. They are either in the curiosity and exploratory phase or the consideration and evaluation.

Having a remarketing campaign set up for these cold to warm leads help brands increase their conversion rate by influencing the decision-making process through discounts or other promos. This helps reduce buying friction and encourages prompt action from customers.

From the standpoint of existing and past customers, remarketing campaigns are essential because it helps increase the lifetime value of your existing customers. Plus, it allows you to reactivate your lapsed customers.

This is a cost-effective way to increase your company’s sales without investing a lot in advertising.

How do remarketing campaigns work?

For online-based businesses, remarketing campaigns work through a tracking technology installed on a website. This widget identifies customers who have visited a website, engaged with particular social media profiles, or subscribed to an email list. These customers are then targeted with relevant ads that remind them of the advertiser’s brand and encourage them to purchase.

For traditional businesses, remarketing can work with a loyalty campaign, where customers give brands their personal information – including contact details to gain access to rewards.

Aside from loyalty programs, social media is a good source of remarketing data for traditional businesses. Marketers can run personalized campaigns for their social media followers depending on their level of engagement and affinity to the brand.

How can remarketing campaigns impact your business?

Remarketing campaigns can significantly impact your business by improving brand recognition, creating repeat purchases, and increasing conversion rates. These campaigns allow you to target customers who have previously engaged with your brand but have yet to purchase. Or customers who haven’t bought anything for some time.

By showing personalized and relevant ads to these customers, your brand can re-engage them and encourage them to complete (or make) a purchase.

Remarketing campaigns can also help you gather valuable insights about your customer’s behavior and preferences. By analyzing the data collected from these campaigns, you can make informed decisions about your marketing strategies and improve the overall customer experience.

For example, you can use consumer data to determine which products are most popular among customers. Then, use that information to create a more targeted and relevant marketing message for your campaigns.

Additionally, remarketing campaigns can help you increase customer lifetime value by encouraging repeat purchases and building long-term customer relationships.

Whether you’re an online or traditional business, remarketing campaigns are essential to the growth of your business. That’s why you need the right tools to run effective remarketing campaigns – especially if you’re a traditional business with limited access to widgets e-commerce brands use.

ARLO is an easy-to-use multi-functional customer loyalty software that can help collect consumer data, implement personalized campaigns, and run remarketing programs effectively.

You can learn more about ARLO here.

4 Strategies to Increase Sales from Your Existing Customers

Jan 30, 2023

Getting the most out of your existing customers is one of the best ways to increase sales without investing a boatload on marketing and advertising promotions. Various studies show that getting current customers to repurchase is up to 5x cheaper than acquiring new customers for your business. You can get five customers to buy more from you for the same amount instead of getting one new customer. If each customer spends 1,000 pesos on your brand, you’ll make 5,000 from your existing customers instead of 1,000 from a new customer. Imagine how much more you can earn if you scale it to 1000 repeat customers vs. 200 new customers.

Increasing Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the metric marketers measure to know how much each customer is worth. Ideally, you’d want to track how much a customer spends yearly because it gives you an idea of how productive they are versus other customers.

Aside from your brand’s Customer Lifetime Value, you also want to know the following metrics:

Purchase frequency– how often a customer buys from you

Average purchase value – how much each customer spends per transaction

Knowing all these metrics is crucial in starting various marketing campaigns, including a loyalty program, because they identify your weak points and opportunities.

For example:

An average customer spends 12,000 pesos yearly. They spend 2,000 pesos per transaction once every other month. This means that your customers aren’t buying from you for half the year.

If you can increase your CLV by getting them to purchase an additional two times per year, you can increase your revenue by 33%.

Growth Strategies for Your Business

There are thousands of ways to get your existing customers to buy more. You can see it in marketing campaigns successful brands are implementing globally. Ultimately, these strategies can be nested under four significant thrusts. These are: increasing purchase frequency, increasing purchase value, increasing basket size, and increasing advocacy.

Increasing Purchase Frequency

One of the most common strategies brands use to increase a customer’s lifetime value is increasing purchase frequency (getting people to buy more often). That’s because increasing purchase frequency can have the most significant margins or return for brands since they’re not inclined to give discounts.

A prevalent business strategy brands use to increase purchase frequency is fast product innovation. These brands know how people love to always have the latest things, which is why they always come up with new products.

A great example is Apple – the maker of everyone’s favorite iPhone. Notice that a couple of years ago, an iPhone had a lifespan of at least two years. The gap between the iPhone 5 and 6 was almost exactly two years. But now, iPhone is releasing a new iPhone almost every year. Did you notice that iPhone 13 and 14 only had a year between them?

This is also true with other companies like Samsung, who are trying to stay neck-and-neck with their competitor.

Outside the smartphone manufacturers, you’ll see this strategy more prevalently in the fashion industry. Many major fashion brands release new clothes every season, while those engaged in fast fashion roll out new designs almost every month!

Fast food chains are known for their constant up-selling and supersizing strategies to increase the average purchase value of customers.

Increasing Purchase Value

Another common strategy brands use to get more from their existing customers is increasing purchase value (getting them to buy a higher-valued item). Increasing a customer’s purchase value can be an excellent long-term play, mainly if they stick with the higher-priced item, even without your prompts.

This strategy can be implemented primarily on quick-service restaurants when the cashier asks, “would you like to upsize that.” Moreover, another subtle strategy companies use is the anchoring technique. This is when they present you with three options – Small, Medium, and Large – with the Large always being more bang-for-your-buck than the Medium one. So, you end up getting the Large option.

This is also where upselling comes in. Upselling is when brands ask you if you want an upgrade on your purchase. For instance, you’re buying the latest iPhone 14 ProMax 256GB, and the product specialist asks if you’ll get the 512GB instead to store more photos.

Increasing Basket Size

Increasing a basket size is when you encourage customers to get more products than they intended. You can see this often on e-commerce sites when they offer products that go well with what you’re buying. Or they’re suggesting products that are “frequently bought together” with what you’re buying. Traditionally, this is when cashiers at fast food restaurants ask if “you’d want some fries with that.” Or if you want to take home another order.

These strategies are usually called cross-selling. If upselling is upgrading a current product, cross-selling, on the other hand, is when you offer related products to make the purchase “better” for the consumer.

Going back to the smartphone example. Aside from upselling you with a higher memory, the product specialist might also offer you accessories like Bluetooth headphones, wireless chargers, and protective accessories for your gadget.

Increasing Customer Advocacy

The last strategy businesses use to earn more from their existing customers is to turn them into brand advocates who share the brand with friends and family.

Brands do this through gift cards, gift packages, or bundle promos for their customers.

Usually, you’ll see brands come up with special promos/bundles during hallmark events like Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and other celebrations. This is to encourage their existing customers to buy their products, not for them, but for those around them who might become customers too.

Another typical example is when restaurants do group meal deals, so you’ll bring your friends and family over for a meal.

Finding the Right Strategy for Your Brand

None of the strategies above are a one-size fits all approach. These are just guides and springboards for new ideas. Ultimately, what you need to do to find the right strategy is to listen to your customers and understand what they want.

Consumer behavior, preferences, and desires are reliable indicators of what strategies your brand needs to implement.

Ultimately, these strategies can be effective if you pair them with an enticing customer loyalty program because it increases customers’ likelihood of buying.

5 Reasons Why Small & Medium Businesses Need a Customer Loyalty Software

Jan 29, 2023

As our previous articles mentioned, an effective customer loyalty program is a powerful business strategy. It has the potential to increase a business’s revenue and profitability drastically. This is because getting repeat customers is much cheaper than acquiring new ones. Plus, loyal customers tend to bring in more customers, which reduces your need for advertising.

Since customer loyalty programs are a crucial component of a business’s success strategy, having the right tools to implement loyalty campaigns is necessary for companies that want to grow.

So for today’s article, we’re looking at the 5 benefits of having customer loyalty software for small & medium businesses.

Reason #1 Better productivity

Getting reliable loyalty management software for your business removes a lot of cumbersome processes. This is because most of the tools you need – from data management to automated campaign implementation will be available on one hub. This eliminates the need for multiple programs, documents, and systems!

With the newfound free time your team gets from this upgrade, they can focus on more essential tasks to grow the business. Initiatives like new marketing ideas, product innovation, and brand building.

Aside from improving their productivity, they’ll also be less stressed since there are menial functions that can be automated. This boosts the morale of your people. Making your company an excellent place to work.

Fast food chains are known for their constant up-selling and supersizing strategies to increase the average purchase value of customers.

Increasing Purchase Value

Increasing Basket Size

Increasing Customer Advocacy

The last strategy businesses use to earn more from their existing customers is to turn them into brand advocates who share the brand with friends and family.

Brands do this through gift cards, gift packages, or bundle promos for their customers.

Another typical example is when restaurants do group meal deals, so you’ll bring your friends and family over for a meal.

Finding the Right Strategy for Your Brand

Consumer behavior, preferences, and desires are reliable indicators of what strategies your brand needs to implement.

Ultimately, these strategies can be effective if you pair them with an enticing customer loyalty program because it increases customers’ likelihood of buying.

10 Benefits of Customer Loyalty Programs

Dec 30, 2022

Are you looking for ways to retain customers and grow your business? A customer loyalty program may be the answer. By offering rewards and incentives to your most loyal customers, you can improve customer satisfaction, increase retention, and drive revenue for your business.

This article will explore the top benefits of customer loyalty programs and how they can help your business succeed.

Here are ten benefits of having a customer loyalty program for your business:

Benefit #1: Increased customer retention: By offering rewards and incentives, customer loyalty programs can help your business retain customers and reduce churn.

Given how competitive today’s market is, keeping most of your customers will not only help you generate more revenue for the business. It can also reduce your marketing costs since customer retention is up to 5x cheaper than getting new customers.

Furthermore, when customers continue to do business with your company, they are more likely to develop a strong emotional connection with your brand and become loyal to it. This connection can create a competitive advantage and help you stand out.

Benefit #2: Improved customer satisfaction: Loyalty programs can make your customers feel valued and appreciated, increasing contentment and happiness.

Customer satisfaction is essential because it can significantly impact your bottom line. When customers are satisfied with their purchase, they are more likely to buy again, refer their friends and family, and provide positive feedback. These can lead to increased customer retention, revenue, and profitability.

Additionally, customer satisfaction is a crucial driver of customer loyalty. When customers are happy with the products or services they receive, they are likelier to remain loyal and continue buying from you.

Lastly, by tracking customer satisfaction levels, you can identify areas for improvement and make changes to your products, services, or processes to better meet customer needs and expectations. This metric can help you stay competitive and maintain a high level of quality.

Benefit #3: Increased customer engagement: Loyalty programs can encourage customers to engage more with your business, whether it’s through online communities, social media, or other channels.

Customers are more likely to make purchases, refer friends and family, and provide positive feedback when engaged with a business. This relationship can lead to increased customer retention, revenue, and profitability.

Furthermore, customer engagement is vital because it can provide valuable insights for your businesses. You can gain valuable insights into customers’ wants and needs by tracking customer behavior and preferences. This information helps you improve your products and services and meet customer expectations.

Benefit #4: Better customer insights: By tracking customer behavior and preferences, you can gain valuable insights that can help your team improve your products and services.

By understanding your customer’s behavior and preferences, you can better understand what they want and need. These insights allow you to innovate your products, services, or processes to meet those needs better.

Furthermore, customer insights can help your business stay competitive in today’s marketplace. By deeply understanding customer needs and preferences, you can differentiate yourself from your competitors and create a solid unique selling proposition to attract and retain customers.

Benefit #5: Increased brand loyalty: By rewarding customers for their dedication, you can create a stronger emotional connection with customers and encourage them to remain loyal to the brand.

Brand loyalty is important because it creates a competitive advantage for your business. In today’s marketplace, consumers have many options, and loyal customers can help a business stand out from its competitors.

Loyal customers are also less likely to switch to a competitor, even if offered a better deal, which can help a business maintain its market share.

Furthermore, brand loyalty matters because it increases customer lifetime value. Loyal customers are more likely to spend more with you over time, which can result in increased revenue and profitability for the business.

Benefit #6: More predictable revenue: With a customer loyalty program in place, you can better predict your future revenue since you’ll better understand their most loyal customers’ spending habits.

A business with a predictable revenue stream can better forecast its future cash flow and make informed business decisions. This knowledge helps your company avoid financial pitfalls and achieve long-term success.

Additionally, having a predictable revenue stream can help your business secure financing and investment. When investors and lenders see that a company has a predictable revenue stream, they are more likely to be confident in its ability to generate profits and repay any loans or investments. This stability can make it easier to secure the financing you need to grow and expand.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, predicting and adapting to changing market conditions can be critical to a business’s success. A predictable revenue stream can provide the stability and flexibility your business needs to respond to market changes and stay ahead of the competition.

Benefit #7: Targeted marketing campaigns: Loyalty programs can be a powerful marketing tool. They give your business a way to reach out to loyal customers and offer them special promotions and deals.

Consumers see millions of marketing messages from different companies in today’s marketplace. Personalized marketing can help a business’s message cut through the noise and grab the customer’s attention.

Personalized marketing campaigns are effective because they are tailored to each customer’s needs and preferences. By using data and insights about customer behavior and preference

you can create marketing messages and offers that are relevant and appealing to each customer. This strategy can make your marketing more effective and increase the likelihood of a customer responding to the campaign.

Additionally, personalized marketing campaigns can help you build stronger customer relationships. By showing you understand and value each customer’s unique needs and preferences, your customized marketing campaigns create a stronger emotional connection with your customer.

Loyal customers are more likely to buy more products than your average customers. This helps you increase your revenue without spending on advertising costs.

Benefit #8: Increased customer lifetime value: By retaining customers and encouraging them to spend more, you can increase the lifetime value of their customers, resulting in increased revenue and profitability.

Customer lifetime value measures the total amount of money a customer might spend with a business over their relationship with the company. When you increase your customers’ lifetime value, your customers spend more money with your brand, leading to increased revenue and profitability.

For example, suppose a business can increase its customers’ lifetime value by 10%. In that case, those customers will spend 10% more with the company over their relationship. This increase in spending can result in a significant increase in revenue and profitability for the business.

So if you’re earning PHP 1,000.00 per customer every year and you have 10,000 customers, a ten percent increase in their lifetime value would equate to an additional 1,000,000 in sales for your business.

Benefit #9: Better competitive advantage: Loyalty programs can help you differentiate yourself from your competitors and create a unique selling proposition.

A competitive advantage sets your business apart from competitors and gives it an edge in the marketplace. This attribute can be a unique product or service, a strong brand, a loyal customer base, or any other factor that gives the business an advantage over its competitors.

When your business has a competitive advantage, you can attract more customers and gain a larger market share. This advantage can lead to increased revenue and profitability for your company since you can capture a larger market share and generate more sales.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, it is crucial for businesses to continuously innovate and find new ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors. A healthy number of loyal customers can provide the stability and flexibility your business needs to respond to market changes and stay ahead of the competition.

Benefit #10: Improved customer referral rates: Satisfied and loyal customers are more likely to refer their friends and family to your business, leading to increased word-of-mouth marketing and new customer acquisition.

Referral rates matter because they provide a valuable source of new customers for your business. When a customer refers a friend or family member, it means that they are happy with the products or services they received and want to share their experience with others. This referral can lead to new customer acquisition for your business, driving revenue and profitability.

Additionally, the referral rate is a valuable metric for businesses. By tracking referral rates, you can understand which customers are most likely to refer others to the company. This information can help you identify your most loyal and satisfied customers and target their marketing efforts to increase referral rates.

This metric also tells whether customers like your products or services enough to share them with friends and family. If your customer referral rate is low, consider investigating why your customers are not recommending your products.

Furthermore, referrals are significant because they can be a powerful form of word-of-mouth marketing. When customers refer a friend or family member to a business, they give the company a personal endorsement. This referral can be a very effective form of marketing, as consumers are more likely to trust the recommendations of people they know and trust.

In conclusion, customer loyalty programs are an effective way for businesses to retain customers, increase engagement, and drive revenue. By offering rewards and incentives to your loyal customers, you can improve customer satisfaction, gain valuable insights, and create a stronger emotional connection with your brand. Whether a small business or a large corporation, a customer loyalty program can help you achieve your business goals and succeed in today’s competitive marketplace.