Building a compelling loyalty program that drives behaviour beyond transactions...

This week I was in London to attend The Big Handshake, organised by the team The Gift Club (TGC). One of the workshops, hosted by April Cox and the team at Catalina UK looked at how to drive profitable engagement through e-commerce, particularly at a time when everyone is so price conscious.

This got me thinking - how can brands and organisations build a loyalty program that engages their customers, and truly goes beyond mere transactions (“What are you going to give me?”) to drive specific behaviours (“what do you want me to do?”).

We all know that building lasting relationships with customers is the key to success – reducing dependency on discounts and offers that erode margin, and high acquisition costs that drive up marketing spend, impacting profitability.

What do brands need to consider when creating a program that captivates an audience and motivates them into a desired action?

1️⃣ Understand Your Customer

A no brainer! 🧠 To drive specific behaviours, you must first understand your customers deeply. Invest time and effort in market research, analyse your data, and ask them questions via surveys or feedback loops.

Identify what motivates them, where their pain points are, and what they’re looking for from your brand. Try and focus on the individual – understanding each customer personally lays the foundation for a successful program.

2️⃣ Define Clear Objectives

What is that you want your customers to do? What specific behaviour to you want to drive?  Whether it's sharing additional data to improve personalisation or customer experience, increasing engagement, fostering loyalty, or promoting advocacy, set clear objectives for your program.

Align them with your organisational goals and make them measurable!

3️⃣ Craft Meaningful Experiences

These days, customers are looking for meaningful experiences that resonate with their values. To go beyond the transaction and expectation of reward for just showing up, your program should create moments that inspire, educate, or entertain. Gamification, surprise rewards & exclusives can make every interaction memorable for your customers.

4️⃣ Leverage Social Proof

Humans are social creatures, and we're influenced by the actions of others. Incorporating social proof into your program by builds trust & credibility and encourages others to engage. Highlighting testimonials, case studies and success stories from satisfied customers is a sure-fire way to build advocacy and acquire new customers.

5️⃣ Foster Community Engagement

Building a community around your brand fosters a sense of belonging and encourages customer engagement. Incorporating elements like user forums, online groups, or social media communities where customers can connect, share their experiences, and support each other encourages active participation and recognises loyal customers and brand advocates.

6️⃣ Offer Personalisation and Customisation

Customers appreciate tailored experiences that cater to their individual preferences. One size does certainly NOT fit all!

Utilise your customer data to personalise each interaction, recommendation, and offer within your program. Making your customers feel seen and understood, will enable you to drive desired behaviours more effectively. When many are tightening their belts and bring more price sensitive, having a level of personalisation that really understands a customers needs and wants can be the difference between them choosing you .v. a (cheaper) competitor.

7️⃣ Provide Incentives and Rewards

There’s no doubt that incentives & rewards can be powerful motivators for customers, but don’t throw them around willy-nilly, especially if you want to build an emotional relationship.

Tying an incentive to a desired action helps shift the focus away from the monetary value and increases engagement. Offer mechanisms like exclusive discounts, personalised coupons and gifts, or VIP access incentivise desired behaviours and make each customer feel special.

Tiered reward systems that encourage customers to progress and unlock more benefits as they engage further are worth considering (as long as the tiers are achievable and your customer feels like their activity is valued!).

8️⃣ Continuously Measure and Optimise – ‘Test & Learn’

You should be regularly tracking and analysing the performance of your program. Monitoring customer engagement, behaviour metrics and incentive/reward redemption means you can can continuously improve.

Gather feedback from your customers and use all those insights to optimise your program, refine your strategy, and enhance the customer experience.

In Short...

By going beyond transactions and cultivating lasting relationships with your customers, your program can create a loyal customer base that champions your brand, reduces costs and improves profitability, and that's what it's all about! 🌟💰👍🏻

What strategies have you found effective in driving specific customer behaviour in your organisation?