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Building channel loyalty has always been a challenge, and the pandemic has complicated matters more. From shuttered stores to the Great Resignation, many companies are looking for new ways to incent their indirect channels. Fortunately, there are newer and better ways to keep distributors engaged.
Merchandise catalogs are the bedrock of channel sales incentives, and rightfully so; with lots of choices, there’s sure to be an eye-catching reward for everyone. In many cases, that desirable item will be gifted to someone else.
A new survey shares insights into how Americans prefer to spend their time and money in 2022. Brand loyalty lives on, the report says, and in-person dining, domestic travel, and in-person entertainment and events are where people are focusing their discretionary cash. Not surprisingly, these are the same categories that should be included in a post-pandemic channels sales incentives strategy.
Curated reward selections and specialty gifts will continue to deliver maximum impact. Merchandise reward options are being broadened to appeal to employees who are spending more time at home. Experiential rewards include tickets to a music concert or sporting event, cooking classes, airline tickets, and hotel vouchers. Many points programs now include charity donation options.
—Incentive Research Foundation, The IRF 2022 Trends Report
For years, it’s been a sales incentives best practice to incent everyone in the selling process. By expanding an incentives ecosystem, it was thought, there’s more opportunity to build channel loyalty. But thanks to the pandemic, customers have become accustomed to researching solutions for themselves and making unassisted, online purchases whenever they can. In fact, most buyers are over 75% through the customer journey before they reach out to sales.
That’s why you need to keep your brand top-of-channel-mind through expanded incentive opportunities. For example, keep rewarding your channel partners for completing training, but don’t require one long session. Break your sessions into shorter chunks, and offer a chance to grab a few points for a five-minute video—or even a one-minute video if that’s what appeals to your channel. And then make sure you have plenty of valuable video content available. A loyalty program based solely on transactions doesn’t provide the same engagement as one that capitalizes on the emotional loyalty opportunities that exist.
For today’s channel sales incentives programs, limited catalogs with stale rewards are no longer effective. Providing plenty of thoughtfully curated choices—including today’s most popular merchandise, gift cards, prepaid cards, travel, events and more—is the way to keep your channel loyalty program fresh and exciting!
To get more bang for each incentive buck, partner with a provider that can provide a SaaS platform that also specializes in curating reward offerings for channel teams—a provider such as Online Rewards, with 20 years of proven experience. Start a conversation about the choices you want to offer, and an incentives pro will help you create your curated catalogs.
Online Rewards is a highly versatile and powerful incentive and loyalty marketing solutions provider. Since its formation in 2002, Online Rewards has designed, developed, and supported global rewards and incentives programs across a variety of industries and applications.
For more information, visit www.online-rewards.com
Interested in seeing how Online Rewards can help take your customer loyalty and reward fulfillment to the next level? Complete the form to schedule a tour with an expert for a quick and comprehensive overview of our platform.
How do you move customers from one-time buyers to super fans? That is your primary job if you are part of the customer acquisition or customer retention team. To retain customers, you need to create loyalty by engaging them and upselling and cross-selling other products. And if you do not do a great job, well, your job is on the line.
So, how do you limit churn? It is all about building and nurturing a customer relationship. It is about creating a positive customer experience that will make customers enjoy buying from you, feel good about themselves, and engage with your brand.
Here are three things to do to encourage customer loyalty.
Find ways to reach out, recognize, and reward customers after they complete a transaction. To do this, you should foster two types of loyalty: rational and emotional loyalty. Rational loyalty is transactional, earning the loyalty of customers who value extrinsic motivators through incentives and discounts. Emotional loyalty is behavioral, earning their loyalty through intrinsic motivators that make them feel valued and understood. This is when customers feel “brand love.”
You can build emotional loyalty through:
Your loyalty program may revolve around rational loyalty. However, you can also create emotional loyalty with your rewards program. One way is to offer incentives that are emotionally resonant. For example, experience-based rewards such as vacations and events stimulate positive emotions.
Other ways you can do this are:
A loyalty program gives you multiple opportunities to engage with your audience and nurture a relationship. And it permits you to interact with them. However, not all loyalty programs work. Make yours engaging using:
Customers want you to recognize them as individuals, so they expect loyalty programs to be personalized. Eighty-six percent of consumers say that personalization influences what they buy. One way is to ask them for feedback through surveys so they have an opportunity to be heard.
While you want to reward customers who make new or repeat purchases, spending more should not be the only way to earn points. Thirty-eight percent of consumers dislike this limitation about loyalty programs. Other ways you can reward them with points are when they share on social media, do a product review, refer customers, subscribe to your newsletter, download your app, and more.
Discounts should not be the only way to reward customers. It would be best if you also offered your customers a choice in redeeming the reward types they like. It could be free tickets to events, free subscriptions, restaurant vouchers, and more.
Not all rewards need to be fixed and expected. Surprise and delight your loyal customers with a discount, promo, or freebie every now and then. They will associate your brand with these positive emotions.
Make your loyalty program fun and addicting by incorporating game design, such as goals, points, bonuses, levels, and the like. Make sure they get prompts or notifications whenever they earn them or move up to the next level.
Consumers are willing to pay more and spend more on brands that share the social, environmental, and political issues they care about. Give them opportunities to redeem points to donate to charities or causes they support.
If your loyalty program has fallen flat, or you are considering starting one that will engage your customers, talk to us to get a fresh perspective to help build or improve your program.
Online Rewards is a versatile and powerful incentive and loyalty marketing solutions provider. We have the best rewards catalog in the industry, enabling you to offer exciting and emotionally resonant incentives to nurture your loyal customers.
Fill out the form below to contact us and learn more about creating a loyalty program that truly engages.
Online Rewards is a highly versatile and powerful incentive and loyalty marketing solutions provider. Since its formation in 2002, Online Rewards has designed, developed, and supported global rewards and incentives programs across a variety of industries and applications.
For more information, visit www.online-rewards.com
Interested in seeing how Online Rewards can help take your customer loyalty and reward fulfillment to the next level? Complete the form to schedule a tour with an expert for a quick and comprehensive overview of our platform.
