Loyalty Blogs

Loyalty has a larger game in the field of customer engagement. Being the only aspect in not just engaging customers but retaining them as well. Keeping a customer is 5 times less costly than acquiring new ones, while half of a brand’s revenue is created by only about 8 percent of their most loyal customers.

Loyalty programs have long been considered the most effective method of keeping the customers glued to a brand. However, the competition is speeding and we regularly need new ways to keep the engagement on! A Gamification reward program is currently the most lucrative way to attract, engage and retain customers in the long run! Being an underrated aspect for long, gamification is a blend of gaming activities that affect both marketing and business strategy for elevating customer engagement, improving sales, and ultimately adding in brand loyalty.

What’s Gamification Reward Program?

As a layman understand the concept of gamification a process to engage customers in a fun way! The concept revolves around having gaming options like spin the wheel, perks on innovatively winning quizzes, or engaging customers! It’s an excellent digital strategy, according to Snipp, brands that incorporate gamification into their customer engagement strategies see a 47 percent rise in engagement, a 22 percent rise in brand loyalty, and a 15 percent rise in brand awareness. A similar study also reveals that more than two-thirds of the world’s top 2000 companies have already embraced gamification and if this is not the reason why your loyalty program should have a blend of gamification, then what should?

Why Gamification works wonders for Customer Loyalty Programs?

There’s no perfect approach to get started with a gamified reward programs. Though when it is implemented correctly, it’s clear that gamification consists of powerful emotions such as intrigue, excitement, and happiness for influencing special actions performed. The regular transactional deals including coupons and percentage discounts have not been very effective as a marketing strategy, brands are working on building their customer loyalty programs for setting themselves apart and driving better customer engagement.

Today, brands are leveraging the method of gamification for being an aspect that makes it stands out from the rest of the marketing aspects. Though it has been executed in different ways wherein numerous sorts of gaming options are involved with a blend of various types of rewards to be given along.

Some stats proves the same –

• 58 percent of customers said they’re more loyal to brands than they were five years ago.
• 63 percent belonged to between one and three loyalty programs, which means that a program must deliver exceptional experienced to make the cut.
• 77 percent of consumers feel brands could be doing more to earn loyalty.

Know-How to Gamify your Loyalty Program

Gamifying your loyalty program should always be topping the list and here are a few steps to be followed through-

• Define the Probable Final Outcome

Different sorts of game design elements can bring in different outcomes and encourage loyalty for motivating customers to let them stick around! The best possible way to do this is through developing multiple steps for allowing them to collect points for rewards redemption. And in case you feel your customers are really interested in achieving goals, performance graphs and progress tracking tools could be an excellent way to take it forward.

• Encourage Customers to Adopt Digital

Reach a step ahead from the traditional methods of app download or loyalty card scan on every single purchase and make use of gamification for pairing digital actions through making a purchase. Always ensure the customers n having a seamless shopping experience either in-store or through online shopping.

• Develop a Storyline

Moving forward, get yourself ready with an outline structure. You must have the parameters defined and set out to reward customers. Keep in mind that the customers would only enjoy gaming if they’re understanding the way to play. Make sure you get the customers to understand the right thing and have an idea of what exactly they will get on winning the same! Map the right storyline and you’re all set!

• Keep an eye on the Budget

Before anything else, it is important to keep an eye on the spending! A mere 5 percent elevation in loyalty can boost the average profit per customer by 25 percent to a whopping 100 percent. The blend of gamification and personalization can have a positive impact on CLV. Being an imperative performance indicator provides a transparent picture of the complete ROI of loyalty offers, marketing activities, and promotional programs.

• Loyalty Program Optimization on Mobile

One of the leading ways to stay up in the loyalty race is basically to offer your best-in-class loyalty program embedded in a mobile application. Some of the most popular gamification options include scratch and win, spin the wheel, etc., and be conveniently implemented with the help of push notifications, automated texts, and much more!

Right Strategies to take into Consideration

Having a strategy to start with can give in so much ease to the process! Here are a few strategies you can swear by!

• Understand your Customers Needs

Before anything else, you should know what your target audience is willing to have and how exactly can you cater to their expectations. more and more brands are now offering a loyalty program but do all customers take active participation? That’s where we need to have an understanding of customer requirements. Here, personalization can be the key, give your customers exact offers and perks they would like to have.

• Introduce Tiers Rewards to Engage Customers

One of the most effective gamification ideas is to make use of loyalty tiers. In this way it’s not just about your customers, even your business could be at gain too! Tiers reward programs encourage customer spending and provide them rewards based on their ranking. Here gamification can play a vital role to leverage brand community in a better way. Gamification can set up milestone-based rewards, letting customers connect conveniently to a loyalty program.

• Offer Experience-Based Rewards

There are heaps of loyalty programs already existing and not all are adapted by the customers, and some might just appear good but, no one knows what’s real! That’s the reason brands are working hard to be more creative. Get started with experience-based rewards to create an emotional connection and a long-lasting business relationship with a brand.

The ones who’re already in Business

Many leading brands are already in business and have been running a successful loyalty program, here are a few brands in power-

• My Starbucks Rewards

Having a personalized approach, the Starbucks reward program was launched for providing loyalty program members personalized rewards each time they make a purchase.

• Target’s Wish List

It’s an app equipped and enabled for children for creating interactive shopping lists during their holiday season. Helps in playing a 3D animated game and much more!

• NikeFuel

Collaborated with wearable fitness devices, the app enables users for sharing fitness achievements on social media. Here users can earn points and enable the same to compete with each other.

• Chipotle

It’s a fast-food giant and has used gaming in varied ways for engaging its customers and rewarding them with free perks in the entire process. Being launched five years ago, Chipotle has always been leading with gamification-based rewards.

Final Thoughts

Gamification rewards program is an exclusive way to cater to customer engagement! As a matter of fact, around 54 percent of members of most loyalty programs are inactive. To make sure most of the dormant customers come in and join the race, a brand requires to be creative enough. Make use of the gamification rewards program and stay up in the competition.