7 Customer Loyalty Strategies: Create an Automatic System on WordPress

Have you ever been given a code after shopping and been told, “You are now a member of our customer’s club? Use it in future purchases to get more discounts and points.”? This is an example of customer loyalty strategies. If you wonder which loyalty strategy fits your business, this guide will help you. First, let’s see how these strategies work.

• How Loyalty Strategies Work
• 7 Customer Loyalty Strategies to Do
  • Point-Reward Based Programs: Keep It Simple
  • Level-based Strategies: Motivate Your Customers
  • Offer a Value: Loyalty is Beyond Dollars
  • Gamification: Let the Battle Begin!
  • Personalize the Loyalty Program: Make Them Feel Special
  • Start Collaborative Schemes: It Takes Two to Make a Bargain
  • Use Membership Cards: Always be Visible
• How to Measure Customer Loyalty Strategies
  • Customer Retention Rate
  • Customer Effort Score
  • Churn Rate

How Loyalty Strategies Work

Customer loyalty strategies are not about expensive campaigns. They’re about designing plans that attract your target audience and make them loyal customers, nothing more, nothing less.

Loyal customers pay extra interest in your brand. Yours will always be the first option for them to buy the product or service they need. You must provide products that benefit them. Otherwise, the chances they remain loyal are very low. As such, sketching out loyalty strategies that keep your customers satisfied and retained does matter.

Customer loyalty programs reward members who engage with your brand. This engagement usually involves a few simple activities:

• Purchasing
• Friend referral
• Product sharing on social networks
• Product reviews posting

The higher the value of customer loyalty, the greater the reward. This is the basic rule for designing all loyalty programs to gain customer trust and build a long-term relationship. Depending on the type of business, customer rewards can include discounts on next purchases, free shipping, and gifts.

Loyalty programs include various strategies, some of which are listed below. However, using one of them does not make the other inaccessible, and a business may use a combination of them in designing its customer loyalty program.

7 Customer Loyalty Strategies to Do

Here are common customer loyalty strategies used worldwide on websites, stores, restaurants, airlines, and online businesses. First, we’ll review an example of every strategy, then introduce related WordPress plugins. Let’s see the first strategy, a classic one.

#1. Point-Reward Based Programs: Keep It Simple

In point-based customer loyalty strategies, customers will be given points as much as they spend money. For example, if a customer buys 100 times a month from your store and one point for each purchase is given, the customer will get 100 points at the end of each month. These points can be converted into a discount, lottery code, or other rewards for the customer.

Example: Skylar

 

Skyler beauty shop has developed a simple loyalty program based on points called ‘Dream Rewards.’. Different activities equal different points, for example:

• 20 points for enrolling in Dream Rewards
• 1 point for every dollar spent
• 25 points for writing a product review
• 100 points for referring a friend

Also, they make redeeming the earned points easy. Customers can simply apply their points at checkout and get a $5 discount for every 50 points.

myCred Plugin

 

Using myCred’s “Hooks” feature, you’ll be able to automatically award points to users who perform actions like purchasing a product, filling out a Gravity form, or simply visiting your site each day. You can also inspire user interaction by highlighting active users with badges or creating a ranking system that motivates them.

HostPlugin – WooCommerce Points & Rewards

As the name hints, this plugin helps you reward your loyal customers using points they can redeem. Some of its key features are:

• Reward points for product purchase, signup & product review
• Define how customers can earn many reward points for purchases
• Define the value of points for discounts
• Purchase products using points

The plugin supports translation, and the premium version gives you options to customize the loyalty program.

#2. Level-based Strategies: Motivate Your Customers

This program defines what services customers want and how much they pay. The basic logic of the program is to categorize customers according to loyalty levels. For example, you can divide customers into two groups: Silver and Gold. The silver group earns 5 points for every dollar they spend, and the golden earns 10 points.

This strategy creates a balance between offering rewards and satisfying customers. It will also encourage loyal clients to buy more to upgrade their positions and create a sense of competition.

In fact, this program is beneficial for both you and the customer, as the points the customer earns will increase their level of loyalty, and on the other hand, your income will also increase this way.

Example: TOMS

 

TOMS loyalty plan includes “Good”, “Gooder”, and “Goodest” levels based on the points earned. You can exchange points for TOMS stuff and discounts, get access to sales & exclusives, and any TOMS lotteries at a “Good” level. You can quicken your point earnings and gain free shipping at the highest level.

Loyalty Points and Rewards for WooCommerce by Flycart

You can configure the plugin settings to set limits for each loyalty level you want. This plugin also offers points for signing up, completing a purchase, writing a review, and referrals. Besides, you can define custom conversion rate values and expiry dates for points and let customers redeem them.

WooRewards

 

This is definitely one of the best loyalty plugins so far. The plugin boasts a wide range of options for you to choose from:

• Methods to get points
• Rewards
• Loyalty programs
• Customers Management
• Sponsorship
• Badges & Achievements

You can even use this plugin for other strategies as well.

#3. Offer a Value: Loyalty is Beyond Dollars

This program can be described as rewarding customers without any monetary rewards. For example, you can tell your customers with $100 of purchase, $10 will be returned to them or spent on charity.

This greatly incentivizes customers to buy because either the money goes back to their account or is donated; they feel good about their purchase. So without considering any rewards for your customers, you will attract their attention morally and personally. This helps you build a better relationship with them.

Thinx

 

Thinx loyalty program supports women and expands access to basic healthcare products. An amount of money is donated to fight for equity and equal community services with every purchase. So the customers are involved in a major cultural change and given a social value.

Diller Loyalty Plugin

This plugin is packed with infinite features to assist your customer loyalty strategies. Besides, it uses widgets and shortcodes to enhance the functionality and streamline the automating process.

Offerwhere Points, Rewards & Loyalty Programs for WooCommerce

 

With this plugin, you can create loyalty programs according to your unique conditions. It returns a percentage of each purchase to the customer’s balance or transfers it to your desired charity account. Also, you can run spend-based and transaction-based loyalty programs and view customers’ data in your Offerwhere account.

#4. Gamification: Let the Battle Begin!

You have probably been playing computer games for hours and did not notice the passage of time at all. Why does this happen?

Science proves that when you play, due to the high secretion of the Dopamine hormone, the satisfaction when winning a reward increases greatly, and these feelings motivate you to repeat an action or behavior.

Holding fun and exciting games lets you grab the audience’s attention and create a happy brand image. This image will make your relationship with the customer more intimate. So if you design games and prizes smartly, you can get an awesome result from a low-cost idea.

Example: Broadway Pizza

 

Broadway, a pizza house in Pakistan, announced a 500,000 PKR (nearly $2800) cash award for its three customers who can finish the 1.5-meter pizza in 30 minutes. The company used the Squid Game trend to promote its competition and attracted many new customers thanks to the simple conditions of the entrance.

GRATISFACTION Plugin

 

GRATISFACTION is designed exclusively for loyalty programs. This plugin consists of loyalty and referral marketing options, games and events, and birthdays and anniversaries in one platform. Let’s have a look at its main features:

• Drive visitors: Run engaging social media, and online marketing giveaways and competitions
• Get leads: Motivate visitors by registrations for contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways
• Increase loyalty: Reward customers for purchases, bookings, and other actions
• Get referrals: Run engaging ‘Refer and Win!’ campaigns

The plugin is free for 100 loyalty members, and the annual price starts from $14 to $280 depending on the number of your members.

Beans Plugin

Beans offers numerous options for the gamification plan on your WooCommerce store. The plugin sets points for purchases, and members can also check their dashboard to see the status of referral bonuses and earned points.

Also, it works with various email marketing systems like MailChimp to combine a reward program with a strong email service. Beans is free for up to 50 deals per month. Afterward, you need to subscribe to a monthly payment plan.

#5. Personalize the Loyalty Program: Make Them Feel Special

All successful customer loyalty strategies need to be personalized to fit members’ needs. Personalization for a loyalty program means using your customers’ data to create better offers, rewards, and plans that customers enjoy engaging with.

First, you have to collect members’ information, including names and emails, and other additional data like age and location. Then you should track users’ purchase history and loyalty program activity for segmenting them to provide relevant offers. Instead of going this long way, you can let the plugins do it for you.

MC Woocommerce Wishlist

To earn user loyalty, you must understand their needs. However, understanding the needs and wants of all customers is not a piece of cake.

That’s why you need MC WooCommerce Wishlist. Using this plugin and your user behavior is tracked. Then, based on the conditions you set, your site offers users free shipping or even a valuable discount and follows the users until they finally buy. All these steps happen automatically, and you do not need to bother.

I suggest you install this free plugin and enjoy welcoming more loyal members and auto sales available. This software contains several loyalty types like Point driven loyalty, Loyalty wallets, and Membership programs. 

Using this plugin, you can customize your loyalty programs based on any profile data, build as many loyalty levels as you’d love to

Talon.one Plugin

 

With over 10,000 loyalty features, Talon is one of the most trustworthy picks available. This software contains several loyalty types like Point driven loyalty,

Loyalty wallets, and Membership programs.

Using this plugin, you can customize your loyalty programs based on any profile data, build as many loyalty levels as you’d love to, and award or save badges for your customers. Almost every strategy mentioned in this article could be applied to Talon.one loyalty engine.

Loyalty Lion Plugin

The plugin accelerates your marketing efforts by offering options including points and rewards, referrals, customization, and loyalty program analytics. You can see some features below:

• Award points for any activity performed on your site
• Use points, tiers, and rewards to re-engage at-risk customers
• Use loyalty emails and points statements to deliver an email marketing strategy
• Evaluate and optimize program performance
• A/B test your loyalty program to set your store apart

The next two strategies may not be directly related to WordPress. Still, you can apply them to your business due to their important impact on building customer loyalty.

#6. Start Collaborative Schemes: It Takes Two to Make a Bargain

Strategic partnerships (also known as affiliate programs) are customer loyalty strategies to greatly retain customers and grow your company.

For example, if your business specializes in diet food, you can collaborate with a nutritionist or fitness coach.

When you give special benefits to your customers and go beyond your company’s products and services, you show that you understand them and pay attention to their needs. It will also help you grow your customer network and reach out to your partner customers.

Example: Uber and Pandora

 

Pandora started a campaign with Uber called “Your ride, your music.” When drivers wait for a ride, they can connect Uber to the Pandora app. Once users are matched with the driver, they’ll see the music bar at the bottom of the Uber app. Music will start when the trip begins for any song, station, or playlist they choose. This is a great example of a branding partnership between two very different products with a mutual goal: Attracting more users.

#7. Use Membership Cards: Always Be Visible

Several aged customers have problems with the Internet and online shopping. The best way to turn this group into loyal members is to utilize old-school methods. One of the most basic customer loyalty strategies is using loyalty cards. They have two major benefits:

1. Your customers can easily keep these cards in their wallets or cars.

2. These cards are a physical sign of your relationship with customers, strengthening loyalty in members’ subconscious.

You don’t need any software to manage this program, and you can print as many cards as you want. Also, it’s up to your members to keep track of their rewards cards, minimizing your work.

Example: Sephora

 

Sephora beauty shop offers a loyalty card to its members. This card is part of the company’s loyalty program to let customers access a range of exclusive items. With the Sephora Credit Card, they earn:

• 15% off on first purchase
• 4% back in rewards for every purchase
• No annual fee

Also, card users get one point for every dollar they spend and have access to beauty classes, seasonal promotions, and exclusive curated sets.

How to Measure Customer Loyalty Strategies

As you put your ideas into action, you need to find a way to measure your success. Customer loyalty strategies should increase members’ satisfaction and retention, plus, provide metrics to measure them. Businesses should use metrics when implementing loyalty programs and calculating them with Google Analytics data or WooCommerce reports.

Customer Retention Rate

This number shows how successful you retain your old customers. A good loyalty program should increase this rate over time.

How to calculate the customer retention rate?

All you need to do is:

• Subtract the number of customers at the end of the period from the number of new customers gained within the period.
• Divide the result by the number of customers at the beginning.

 

Customer Effort Score

Customer effort means how much energy or time the customer needs to interact with you. If your program has after-sale services or lives support, this would be a good metric for you.

You can assign a number to customers’ effort experience from 1 to 7 and divide all customer effort scores by the number of people asked.

 

Churn Rate

This rate shows the number of customers that stopped using your services. This is a good metric for level-based programs.

To measure it, you need to divide the number of customers left over the period by the number of customers you had on the first day.

 

Get Your Loyalty Program Up and Running!

There are many ways to measure your customer loyalty. For example, between 30 and 60 days after purchasing the product, you can reach out to customers for their reviews and feedback.

Those who are not satisfied give a score below 6. Happy customers’ scores are above 8, and those who do not have a clear opinion are between 6 and 8. Using surveys and polls proves an effective to do this.

Try to give more than you promise. By finding customers’ names and information, you can send a note to thank them for their trust in you and even another offer along with the product.

To sum up, customer loyalty programs bring you closer to the ultimate goal of any business, turning a customer into a member. If this article were helpful to you, we’d love to send the link to your friends to help their business. Finally, as always, we are happy to share your experiences and questions with us in the comment section.

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This content is contributed by Saeed Threes. He’s super curious about marketing with WordPress. “How to sell more without more traffic?” He seeks the answer to this question in all his jobs!