How to Keep Your Loyalty Program Running Effectively
Having a loyalty program can boost your consumer engagement and help turn occasional visitors into super fans of your brand, and to keep customers coming back for more, it can’t just be a “set it and forget it” approach. Just like a car or home, without regular maintenance and care, it will get rusty, dusty, and ineffective. That’s why it is important to regularly maintain your loyalty program by auditing how your program is performing and continuously servicing it to keep it in high performance mode for your business. As with owning a car or home, keeping up with their regular maintenance helps keep them running and can help extend their lifetime, and the same goes for your loyalty program. It’s important to regularly take stock of your core program, campaigns and offers, and perform “maintenance” audits to keep messaging targeted, strategies fresh and most of all, members engaged.
Based on our experience with auditing loyalty programs both from the brand side as well as the loyalty vendor side, there is always room for improvement and updates to be made with all the settings and features available, not to mention the numerous campaigns and journeys running. Auditing your loyalty program every 6 to 12 months can ensure you keep up with its regularly needed tune ups to keep it in tip top shape and performing at its very best for your business. Additionally, you’ll be able to more easily identify where you’re meeting your goals and areas of opportunity for further optimization.
While auditing a program might seem a bit daunting, think of it more like a scavenger hunt to find those easter eggs of opportunities for optimization. Just think, you could find the perfect opportunity to try out that new offer you’ve been wanting to test because the data supports an opening to try it out. Maybe you target a new group of users who have started making more regular visits from recent journeys implemented. The possibilities of opportunities are endless and dedicating some time to researching and being the “mechanic” for your program, it’ll pay off to keep your loyalty program running like a well-oiled machine.
So what is involved? Overall, you’ll be looking for any holes in your existing strategy and opportunities for new user journeys and adjustments to existing campaigns. Identifying new audiences to target and cleaning up your existing audiences while also analyzing how existing offers are performing and discovering opportunities to test or swap out offers for better performing ones will also be key in your review. In general, some questions to ask yourself as you work your way through the different components of your loyalty program – from the base program itself to campaigns and journeys to audiences and offers and everything in between:
- Are there platform features that are underutilized you could test out or take advantage of?
- Does your base program earning rate still fit with the economic times in being achievable for consumers? Or have menu price increases made it too easy to earn base rewards to where it is impacting the business?
- Are any of your offers really outperforming the rest or have any gone stagnant in redemption rates?
- Have you tried any A/B testing with campaign communication variations, send times, control groups, etc. in the last 6 months?
To get started, we recommend taking an in-depth look at the following areas of your loyalty program and keep a few things in mind as you audit them to see where your program can continue to optimize or is already hitting and exceeding expectations:
| Campaigns and User Journeys | From reviewing your evergreen campaigns to your localized marketing campaigns and user journeys, check that the communication content is still on brand and up to date, the intended audiences are still relevant, and most importantly, lean on the campaign performance data to identify areas of optimization and where the existing strategy is already on track with performance expectations. You might find that some communications could use a refresh with new imagery and content, or highlight new or different program benefits based on feedback you’ve received. Campaign data may indicate the need for strategic adjustments to better time customer engagement within a journey, ultimately improving conversion rates. | |
| Segmentation | Taking a closer look at the audiences receiving your campaigns can help determine if messaging needs recrafting or if there are new opportunities to connect with other groups of members based on how the campaign performance and message open rates look. It may be that your audiences are too broad for some journeys and you need to get more granular. Regularly reviewing your segmentation can help make sure you’re reaching the right audience with the right message to connect with their interests to drive engagement. | |
| Offers | Whether its your base program offers or those sent via campaign, all offers should be reviewed in your audit to ensure they have healthy redemption rates and aren’t getting stale. Here is where you can see which offers are outperforming others by cross comparing redemption rates and strategizing replacement offers or testing out new offers for those that are lower performing. For your base rewards, be sure to check if any particular offers are falling behind in redemptions to keep your base offers and any applicable points thresholds for earning as attractive to your members as possible. | |
| Program Performance Data | How are the stats of your overall program looking? Are they meeting expectations for the goals you’ve set for the loyalty program or falling a bit short in some areas? While getting granular in the data in campaigns and offers can drive more tailored strategy decisions, taking a step back and looking at the overall metrics of the program can give you the big picture on performance and open doors of insights to help you focus on meeting larger program goals. | |
| Mobile app and website user experiences | To ensure there is a seamless user experience across all channels, it’s important to review the user flows of your loyalty mobile app and website experience for participating with your program. When was the last time your app was updated? Are users able to get to key areas like checking their rewards, ordering online, and redeeming offers with minimal taps? Same goes for the website experience – Is it easy for you to go through the flow to check in, see your rewards and points, review program information? All things to consider when reviewing your mobile app and website dashboard experiences. Keeping the user flows as easy and simply as possible and up to date will help reduce barriers to participating. |
Have you audited your program in the last 6 – 12 months?
If not, it’s time to add a program audit to the top of your to-do list. Or instead, how about a fresh pair of eyes to audit your loyalty program? Here at 5&5, our Loyalty Team leverages their industry expertise to perform loyalty audits for brands of all sizes. Investing in an in-depth review of your loyalty program from top to bottom and identifying areas where your program is succeeding and perhaps falling short will ultimately lead to growth and push forward your program and business goals. Contact our Sales Team at sales@5and5.com to learn more about our Loyalty Audit services available.
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