5 minute read time
How to Drive Loyalty with Your Messaging Strategy
Close your eyes and take a moment to think about your favorite brands. What do you like about them? What don’t you like about them? You probably love your favorite brand’s customer service, products, and the fact that they show you how much they really, really appreciate your business. You probably don’t love it when your favorite brand sends you irrelevant content and promotions, fails to acknowledge your shopping history, or misses the mark when showing their appreciation to you.
What is the underlying common denominator? Loyalty. And we’re not just talking about robust, complex loyalty programs. We’re talking about all of the ways you can leverage your messaging and marketing campaigns to drive deeper brand loyalty, retain customers, make people feel extra special, and attract new customers because they know your brand delivers the best customer experience.
The 2024 Marigold Consumer Trends Index tells us that 63% of consumers will pay more to shop with the brands they’re loyal to. Brand loyalty is immensely valuable, but brands need to satisfy consumer desires in several key areas to maintain it. Our research goes on to show that more than 70% of consumers cite the following as either important or critically important to maintaining their loyalty:
- Customer service and support
- Offers and promotions
- Data privacy policies
- Product and service quality, options, and availability
Customers who participate in a loyalty program receive rewards and incentives for simply doing what they would have already done: buying the products or services they need or want. People want to belong to loyalty programs because of the allure of the offers – discounts and coupons that save them money on the products they love, exclusive shopping opportunities when new products and services are launched, support for a business that aligns with their values and membership in a special community.
Happy customers tell their friends, family and networks about how much they love their favorite brands – which is a bonus for expanding your reach and attracting new customers. As your most loyal customers continue to earn rewards, they recognize that building a relationship with the brand benefits them, so they keep coming back.
So, the question is: How can you leverage your email marketing solution to drive deeper loyalty without launching a full-blown loyalty program on a small budget?
The answer is more straightforward than you think.
In 2024, it’s time to rethink marketing strategies and tactics through the lens of developing a personal and contextually relevant conversation with people who either know or love your brand. That means evolving from offering generic buyer journeys to engaging in real-time with a real person actively trying to decide what they want or need and figuring out where and how they want to research and buy it.
- Show me you know me. To grow your customer base and foster a deeper connection, you must show your customers you know them. How do you do that? Collect their preferences and interests when you communicate with your customers. Quizzes, contests, product pickers, surveys – there are dozens of ways to collect customer data. From there, you can combine their preferences with their shopping history, browsing history, location, and a slew of data points you can access. With all this information, you can begin sending personalized, scalable messages to your most loyal customers. And the best part is – they’re full of offers and promotions that feel curated to their wants and needs. A true win-win!
- Make it worth my while. If customers know you offer a quality product and customer service experience, they will likely continue shopping with you. By weaving loyalty program tactics into your messaging strategy, you can make it easier to reward customers for the actions they would have taken anyway.
Did they double the number of purchases they made this year? Reward them with free shipping. Did they refer a friend without you having to ask? Thank them by offering a $10 promo code for their next purchase.
With Campaign Monitor by Marigold, you can show customers that you recognize and appreciate their efforts by using our punch card functionality to reward them for consistent action.
- Earn my brand love. Who doesn’t love a personalized experience? It’s one of the reasons we sign up for loyalty programs. There’s no better feeling than receiving a discount on your favorite pizza from your pizza joint or a personalized invite to a private event at your favorite store.
What is one way to do this, you ask?
Digital punch cards are a great place to start. If a customer purchases the same pizza almost every Friday night, you can assume they’ll order another pie the following Friday. There are dozens of local places where your customers can get pizza, but they choose you. To reward this customer’s loyalty, you can enable a digital punch card that triggers a coupon after they’ve reached a certain threshold. In this example, you could have it set your digital punch card to reward the customer with a coupon code after their tenth purchase – and it’s all automated. Punch cards are a straightforward and highly effective way to show appreciation for their business.
Getting Started with Loyalty
Here at Marigold, we help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) build mutually beneficial relationships and grow their businesses by driving repeat purchases and rewarding customers for consistent actions– without exhausting their time, bandwidth, or resources.
SMBs can use customer data to create interactive experiences from one central platform that build deeper connections, encourage consistent actions, and ultimately keep customers coming back.
Learn more about tiers and punch cards, sign up, or request a live demo here.
