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Increase engagement, customer loyalty and repeat buyers with strategic email marketing for your loyalty program.
Retaining is better than attaining, and Rewards Programs are great way to leverage the value of return customers. In the long run, attracting new customers can cost your company up to 5x more compared to retaining your existing ones. Yotpo, Loyalty Lion, Smile.io - there are so many options out there.
While it won’t work for all business niches, when applied in the right place it is guaranteed to boost your customer retention and the rate of repeat buyers. A customer who signs up to your loyalty program is 47% more likely to buy from you again. And when 80% of your business will come from just 20% of your customers, you can see why it pays to invest in – and reward – customer loyalty.
What are the benefits of using Loyalty Programs in email marketing?
If you are reading this article you already know the benefits of Loyalty Programs, I will go through them once again for you, so that your motivation to set up strategic email marketing for your loyalty program doesn’t wear off.
Stop competing on price with competitors
Retain existing customers
Increase Customer Lifetime Value
Build personal relationships
Create brand advocates
You can read more on these benefits in a Loyalty Lion article - Loyalty programs: Five benefits of a loyalty program
With a loyalty program, you can tap into the key drivers of customer loyalty. Most shoppers in today’s world (74%) admit that working towards a goal or reward makes them loyal. An even higher share (79%) like to know that being loyal to a brand – your brand – gains them points.
These campaigns, automations and pop-ups strategies will help you increase the number of members as well as grow the return customer rate, lowering your acquisition costs, which means - more profit, of course.
Campaigns
As with any campaigns strategy, plan ahead, so you can see the big picture of what content your customers are getting from you. Be mindful of the number of sales and promotions you send to your customers, create content that your customers will benefit from and be consistent. In this article, see some pro tips on how to strategize your campaigns calendar and how to never run out of content ideas.
Below are some of the strategies to incorporate in your campaigns that are guaranteed to maximize the benefits of your Loyalty Program.
1. Grow your Loyalty Program Members List
First of all, you need to grow awareness around your Loyalty Program and have people join. Do that via an email in your Automated Welcome Sequence, a pop-up form on your website or as a dedicated campaign every once in a while.
From: Bokksu
Subject: We give you a reason to stick around, promise!
In addition, a more subtle but still effective way to grow your rewards members list is using banners in your email campaigns promoting your program. Don’t forget to provide clear benefits and attractive incentives to make joining the rewards program irresistible. Use tools like social proof, exclusivity, money incentives to peak subscribers’ interest and drive
engagement.
Check out how Sephora incorporates their Loyalty Program in the header and footer. I also love that they provide points balance in both, which makes customer want to click and see how they can redeem it.
From: Sephora
Subject: You have until tonight...Up to 50% off is unmissable
2. Educate your customers by sending out instructional campaigns: step by step on how to earn and use points.
Those emails do magic. Show the simplicity of using program and leave subscribers no reasons to reject your offer. Show them steps on how to log in, ways to earn points, how much money they can save and how to redeem those money for future purchases. you can even feature your customer’s points total in every single email you sendUse the loyalty program custom metrics to automatically generate the points amount. Here is an article from Smile.io explaining how to pull data directly from your rewards program.
From: Peter Manning
Subject: What a collection you’ve got!
3. Emails to increase number of referrals
With this type of loyalty program, you can reward your loyal customers while gaining new ones at the same time. This is where retention meets acquisition, so be generous. This can be done via automations or campaigns, add a link in your footer, or a banner, have a targeted pop-up or fly out on your site. The shopper gets a reward for spreading the word about your business. And you get someone to do your acquisition marketing for you.
From: MeUndies
Subject: Spread the Love (And Get PAID💰)
4. Monthly Loyalty Members Discounts: double points or money discounts
Reward your Rewards Program members! They are your loyal customers and they need extra attention, as they are the ones who are the most likely to come back. 2X Points promotions are great, because they are not really a discount, but a credit towards their next purchase. If they are interested in more points, means they are interested to come back to your store. So, go ahead and add a 2X Points event to your campaigns calendar. Pro Tip: create variations for members and non-members of your Rewards Program. Remind non-members that they get points just for joining and then, when making a purchase, they get extra points on top of that. That’s some serious savings!
From: Lulalu
Subject: 24 Hours | 2X The Points
5. Schedule special offers for Loyalty Program Members
This strategy will help you nurture your existing Loyalty Program members, while attracting new ones. To begin, start promoting Loyalty Program Perks in your regular newsletters. In your regular newsletter campaign (or an automation), include a block inviting to join your points club, because there is a promotion going on every other Tuesday, for example. And keep your word! Send a special offer to your loyal subscribers - express shipping, gift card, discount on a certain item, early access to new product, a giveaway, early access to sale, double points events, double referral bonus, etc, on that agreed date.
Loyalty Programs are all about surprising and delighting your loyal customers, and making them feel exclusive.
From: Italic
Subject: You won't want to miss this Thank You Tuesday
6. Use VIP tiers
By creating VIP tiers, you can strategically offer higher value rewards when they will have the greatest impact on customer loyalty. VIP tier offers provide a feeling of exclusivity to people who already love your brand—plus it might encourage a sporadic shopper to make additional purchases to get into the club. Most Rewards Programs offer VIP tiers as a part of their programs, all you need is to customize by setting the conditions - different milestones that would reward your customers letting them know that they are valued.
From: Native
Subject: You've earned a new rewards status: Cucumber Connoisseur! 🥒
7. Survey. Ask your customers why didn’t they join.
A great way to learn how your program can be improved and to engage with your audience, making their opinion matter. You can send separate surveys to those who participate in your points and to those who do not. These emails should be more personal, and maybe even come from CEO of the brand or team instead of the brand itself.
From: MeUndies
Subject: Help us improve your Membership Experience! 😊
Make sure to plan your Loyalty Program Campaigns ahead. There is a free ecommerce email campaigns calendar offered by Email Marketing Agency Flowium, that would show you all National Holidays at a glance, which will allow you to get really creative. Upload it to a digital whiteboard - such as Miro or Figma, and put sticky notes with your ideas.
Automations
In addition to campaigns that would grow awareness and provide special offers, automations will keep reminding and engaging with your existing members without you having to do anything.
Who doesn’t love automations? Set up once and they will be making revenue for you forever, without any more effort from your side. They are based on customer behaviour, that’s why they are so powerful. You will be talking directly to your customer as they go through the journey with your brand. It’s like coming to a physical store and having a customer service representative helping you out based on your familiarity with the brand and based on what you are looking for. If you don’t have any automated series set up, read my article on Top 3 flows every eCommerce business must have in place.
Below are examples of automations based on events that will trigger a certain message. From points reminders to birthday gifts and referral bonuses.
VIP Tier Earned
Coupon Earned
Points Reminder email
Redemption Reminder email
Happy Birthday
Gift Card Redeemed
Referrer Thank You
Referral Link Share
Referral Link Share Reminder
In the Yotpo article you can find the details on how to set those up in Klaviyo, and more on when they will be triggered and what content to include. It is so simple - because of seamless integrations that most Rewards Programs have with Klaviyo, all the Metric Triggers (or events) already exist in Klaviyo! You will find the same for pretty much any other Rewards Program. If you have your Welcome Automations set up, I strongly recommend including a banner, a block or a separate email dedicated to your Program Announcement, or you can create a separate Announcement Flow that would be triggered on a certain stage of your customer journey.
They don’t have to be fancy - more like branded transactional emails. That’s why they would be very simple to set up - same template, different copy, done for you triggers and you are goo to go!
From: Love Cocoa
Subject: You’ve earned 10 Cocoa Beans!
Pop-Ups
You can target people based on certain behaviours. In Klaviyo, create a segment of people you want to target and set up a pop up (or flyout) to target those people. These won’t be exactly sign up forms, rather they would contain the link redirecting customers to the Rewards Program Sign Up page. You can also use a new Klaviyo feature called “teaser” that would be hanging in the corner of the page as a reminder to sign up for the program.
For example, create a segment of people, who have purchased once over all time and are not members of your program. Next time they enter your site, the Loyalty Program sign up form will pop up inviting them to join the program and earn bonuses. The benefits of this pop up is that you already know that the subscribers are interested in coming back, so encourage and incentivize them to join the program and become even more engaged with your brand. Make sure to use very specific language that would talk directly to your customers who have purchased already, are interested in buying again and just need a little nudge to feel extra special.They already are spending money, so why not to earn money towards their purchases?
Another example would be targeting those who are already members and using the ‘surprise and delight’ strategy by giving them an unexpected discount when they visit your site: “Thank you for being a valued VIP member. Here is 100 points you can redeem towards your next purchase”. Or “Here is your free (express) shipping, just because you are a member.”
Making your subscribers feel special is a sure way to have them come back again and again.
Try a referral pop up for your subscribers - both members and non-members. Use different language to talk to the right segments of people.
To sum it up
Increasing your customer loyalty (and, therefore, customer lifetime value) is how your business grows. So make sure to bookmark this article and start taking your customer loyalty to the next level with this email marketing strategy.
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