Top 16 Ways to Use Loyalty Points

Customer Centric use of Loyalty Points 

Retail marketers, independent store owners and loyalty specialists have to do loyalty-marketing different in 2016 that engage Millennials better. Loyalty points are an attribute and a flexible way of how the best loyalty reward programs can function and actually generate ROI. 

Loyalty Points that are Meaningful for Millennials 

How digital touchpoints influence brick-and-mortar behaviour is key in providing better customer experiences.  Digital touchpoints help optimize the customer experience customized to your store's vertical, your customers and the personalizing how you relate to different personas of your audience. With Cloud POS loyalty-marketing solutions this is easy for the retailer and seamless for the customer, Millennials will take better notice of your store and retail brand. 

Loyalty Points can Build Reciprocity in Shoppers 

Loyalty points are an effective medium to gamify customer transactions and build more authentic reciprocity with high value customers and brand advocates. Your loyalty program should feel special, and be able to create unique and memorable experiences of your store and products. 

This is an idea box to help independent retailers use loyalty points better: 

Top 16 Ways to Use Loyalty Points 

1- Point Accelerators

Have a time-limited off or event, why not make it a 2x occurrence. So instead of earning 1 loyalty point per dollar spent, customers will earn 2 during the given period. 

2- Point Accelerator Liquidation 

Instead of giving an insane 60% off on stock you need to liquidate, why not incentivize it differently. Try a 3x point accelerator event. This will save you $ if you have a stellar loyalty program. 

3- Brand Advocacy 

Reward customer who are brand advocates online, everything social from a Like/Love or Like/Wow on Facebook to user generated video content or a selfie on Instagram with your brand's #hashtag. 

4- Contests 

Digital natives like interactive content and events. So reward the winners of contests with loyalty points, make it lucrative so they can spend it with your points wallet system in ways that gives your customers flexibility and choice. 

5- Tiers

One of the most traditional uses of lifetime points are tiers. Brand this to your vertical and to your audience. This is the Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze that comes to mind. Different tiers and statuses that customers can "unlock" with lifetime points is at the very heart of gamification for digital natives. 

6- Sign up Bonus

If customers sign up to your loyalty program and offer their personal information, you have to reward them with a lump sum of points. This is incredibly important to earn their trust and develop reciprocity and leverage your loyalty rewards program. 

7- Leave a Review

Not giving your customers a point incentive to do a customer review is also ill-advised. While you want your reviews to be objective, showing your gratitude is usually a good idea. Not enough that it feels like a bribe, but enough to tell them that you noticed. 

8- Friend Referrals 

If yo can pair your loyalty points with word of mouth and friend referrals to shop at your store, this is exceedingly smart and a high ROI proposition. 

9- SMS Triggered Messages

Letting your customers know about where they stand in terms of lifetime and active points is a great way to do a 'micro poke' with a short concise SMS message where the open rate is guaranteed to be high. Once you get opt-in for this, this is an ideal way to keep in touch with customers. This might be for example, after a purchase over a specified amount, or a thank you monthly message with their loyalty info update. 

10- Corporate Social Responsibility 

This is about becoming a more authentic brand and contributing back to society.  Pairing point accumulating with altruistic behaviours in support of worthwhile causes is a great way to show your customers you care about the local community and other good causes you believe your customers care about that promotes a better world. 

11- Create a Campaign Calendar 

Pairing loyalty points with creative campaigns you will be sending your customers through the retail year that surprise, delight and give them an incentive to share with their peers is extremely important and a high ROI venture for retail marketers. For this it's optimal that you have software that's linked to your Cloud POS system that can is white label (not a third party solution) that can demonstrate the ROI of each campaign. If the software has a campaign library with templates so much the better. 

12- Keep it Simple Stupid

Ah the KISS paradigm is so important in loyalty point. Keep it simple, use a 1 dollar spent or 1 point earned ratio that all customers can intuitively understand. This will help customers want to opt-in to your loyalty program because they will all immediately "get it". 

13- Make it Seamless 

Customers don't need another loyalty card or external things to do. Make it cloud based and digital. That's where Millennials live, why bring legacy instruments and networks that aren't about your own brand into the picture. Cut out the tedious and gimmicky networks and infrastructure. The workflow has to be seamless. Speed, convenience, personalization. 

14- Active Points Wallet

Giving customers the ability to spend points to "unlock" different rewards makes shopping more fun and can be a digital incentive to visit the brick-and-mortar store. This should be totally configurable and customizable by the independent retail store owner and loyalty program manager. 

15- Points for Cash 

Recurring "cash-back" rewards program, exchange 200 points for a 10$ discount on next purchase for example. Pretty useful active point plateaus that customers will want to hit with scaled rewards that incentive long-term retention and repeat purchases. 

16- Product Launch 

Incentivize a new in-house branded product your store is offering by creating a point accelerator just on a specific product category or item. The more personalized and customized your use of loyalty points to your customers the better. This can generally only be done by software that is flexible and configurable that you independent retail store is fully in control of. 

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