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.

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!