Top Gear: Useful Internet Marketing Strategies & Tips to Move You Forward: 3 Ways to Build Loyalty with Customer Data

Wednesday, 2 December 2020

3 Ways to Build Loyalty with Customer Data

According to an Oracle-CrowdTwist study, 55% of consumers want personalized brand experiences; however, only 12% said their favorite brand does this successfully. This creates a massive opportunity for brands to gain a competitive advantage by adopting omnichannel loyalty programs.

Omnichannel loyalty programs allow brands to collect rich, first-party, opt-in data across all business channels. Leveraging this data, brands can build 360-degree views of customers and create relevant, memorable experiences that drive brand affinity.

Here are some ways brands can source and leverage customer data to power personalization, deepen connections, and keep customers coming back.

Reward for every transaction

Consumers want greater flexibility in how and where they shop. Our research shows that while 64% of consumers prefer to shop online, 48% also enjoy shopping in-store. As part of their experience as a loyalty member, they expect to be recognized for every purchase they make. By rewarding customers for shopping in-store and online, brands can capture critical data that gives insight into customers’ shopping behaviors and preferences across all transaction channels.

When recognizing customers for making in-store purchases, brands gain access to product information and store location. For CPG and media brands, for example, that do not have access to point-of-sale (POS) data, receipt scan is a useful tool that captures customer data about products purchased, store location, and total basket purchase. Purchases made online capture product and transaction customer data.

Leveraging this transaction data, brands can target customers with relevant product promotions, drive in-store foot traffic, and create personalized recommendations.

Incentivize brand engagement

Omnichannel loyalty programs reward customers for not only spending with the brand, but also for their engagement. When designing a loyalty program, smart brands consider what data can be gleaned from each engagement activity and how this insight can be used to deepen relationships with customers. Fortunately, our research finds that consumers are willing to complete engagement activities in exchange for loyalty perks.

Over 80% of the consumers we surveyed said they are willing to fill out a survey. Including a survey as a point-earning activity in your program is a great way to capture personal data such as gender and birth date, preferences like how often they like to receive company emails, and interests, such as the product category they shop in.

Friend referrals are another great activity to incentivize for. 87% of the study respondents answered that they would refer friends and family to their favorite brand. When a loyal customer makes referrals, you not only gain access to data on like-minded people, you also successfully extend your marketing reach at no additional cost.

About 72% of consumers are willing to write reviews to earn points. Incentivizing customers to write reviews is a beneficial activity to include in your loyalty program. Reviews provide brands with critical customer feedback, help build your reputation, and also amplify your brand to prospective customers.

Having access to insightful engagement data arms brands with greater conviction on where to allocate their budget, focus their strategies, and how to optimize their loyalty program to drive participation.

Recognize and encourage advocacy

The data collected in an omnichannel loyalty program gives detailed insight into customer behavior and affinity, helping you identify your brand advocates. Brand advocacy brings immeasurable benefits to organizations.

Acknowledging brand champions with unexpected surprises is a great way to reinforce the relationship and keep your happy customers loyal. Loyalty data can help determine the right approach. Brands can mine loyalty data to identify high-value customers and gain insight into the tactics and campaigns that would resonate.

Effective targeted campaigns include sending a gift, providing access to VIP rewards, or an invitation to enjoy an exclusive brand event. These tactics help increase spend, grow positive word-of-mouth, create long-lasting relationships, and maximize customer lifetime value (CLV).

The benefits of omnichannel loyalty programs from a data-perspective are two-fold. When actioned upon using data mining and segmentation, these insights can drive spend and create personalized experiences that your customers will tell their friends and family about. From a brand perspective, access to this level of customer data helps informs the greater business on where to invest resources to grow acquisition and increase retention.