Create a superior customer experience with an integrated loyalty page

When building an ecommerce business, an optimized customer journey is the main focus for merchants. And a lot of time, resources and budget are allocated to making sure it’s done properly. But when building a loyalty program, making it fit into an optimized customer journey is often an afterthought.

Any new technology that becomes part of your customer journey must be given the same level of focus so it’s ready for success. As average conversion rates for ecommerce are low. They fall between 1.84% – 3.71% in comparison to other industries with an average of 2.35% and 5.31%. Also businesses that have a mobile app store page see a much better conversion rate of an estimated 26.4%.

Using pop-ups and widgets as the main way customers interact with your loyalty program doesn’t do your customer journey justice, especially when the customer experience on mobile app stores severely drops with pop-ups. This experience makes it difficult for members to redeem rewards. This is crucial as redeeming members’ annual spend is 164% higher than non-members. In fact conversion from popups is only 5% and that’s the top end of the scale.

However merchants are not entirely to blame for defaulting to popups, loyalty platform service providers also need to take responsibility for the features they offer. Not all of them make it easy for merchants to integrate their loyalty program into their customer journey. This isn’t a surprise as there aren’t many loyalty providers that purely specialize in loyalty. This shows where the focus of feature developments lies and limited understanding on how to make the loyalty experience a part of the customer experience.

With an Integrated Loyalty Page ranking as number two in our Top 5 features merchants need when considering a loyalty platform partner blog, it’s easy to optimize your loyalty program to be part of your customer journey. Or, by going down the development route, a small amount of time will really customize your loyalty page to reflect your brand and make it an integral part of your store.

Once a dedicated loyalty page is integrated into your store you will have a unique page URL. This opens up the possibilities of embedding loyalty into all your marketing activities and campaigns. Here’s a list of ways to do this:

• More effective launch and promotion of your loyalty program, especially when using social media. Drive followers directly to your loyalty page so they learn about your unique loyalty program and how it supports your brand value. Give your loyalty program the same marketing effort as a new product range. Marketing your loyalty program is not a “once and done” activity either. Instead,  continuously market your program to increase exposure, sign-ups and redemption.

• Capture first-party details of “Browser” personas. With a sign up page, which is also an explainer page, to entice this shopper persona to sign up to your loyalty program. From there, you’ll be able to start building a relationship with them. A loyalty program is a great way to capture their details without pressuring them into buying. Then use this information to kickstart personalized and meaningful communications with them. 

See more examples of sign up pages here. 

• Loyalty-led email marketing. Keep loyalty front and center of customers’ minds and embed your loyalty page URL in all your email communications. This will incentivize and convert shopper personas to move through the customer journey by sending:
  • A welcome email to your new members that educates them about your loyalty program. Include details on ways to earn points and redeem rewards.
  • Reward available and monthly reward emails to your Hesitant buyers to incentivize them back to their carts and First Time Buyers to buy again through redeeming points earned
  • A points expiring email to create urgency and a sense of FOMO that will bring them back to the store to use points before they lose out
  • Take it to the next level by integrating with one of our best-in-class ESPs and automating your loyalty email marketing. Loyalty segmentation and email triggers for a range of activities, loyalty milestones such as a tier upgrade, birthday reward or custom rule and marketing campaigns

Superior customer experience made easy

Your loyalty program should enhance your customer experience and journey. A lot of loyalty providers don’t make this easy and are too restrictive. This is especially the case with off-the-shelf platforms. When choosing a loyalty provider, benchmark them on how they will make your store experience the best it can be. Keep an eye out for features that make implementation smooth and the customer support to make your loyalty program a success.

Explore how to consistently deliver seamless customer experience online with our free LoyaltyLion Academy tutorials.

Or speak to a Loyalty Consultant today and see how you can put loyalty at the heart of your customer journey.