How our loyalty platform helps you easily retain new customers

Acquiring new customers is difficult, especially because there are an estimated 12 million – 27 million ecommerce sites across the entire globe (with more being created every single day). And, according to Harvard Business Review, acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than retaining an existing one. Fail to retain your  new customers and the profitability of your business could hang in the balance..

In an onboarding survey of 400+ new merchants (from H2 2020 to H1 2021) who joined the LoyaltyLion platform, retaining new customers is the number one objective (25%) for setting up a loyalty program. But just setting up a loyalty program alone doesn’t mean instant success. Merchants must continuously optimize and build out the loyalty program to make sure it remains relevant and enhances the customer experience.

LoyaltyLion has a whole host of features that allow you to optimize your loyalty program to retain customers you acquired through acquisition marketing such as SEO and Ads. Keep bringing them back to your store to redeem loyalty points/rewards and stop them from going to your competition.

And, don’t worry – your program doesn’t have to be perfect from day one. We know you’re probably facing  challenges relating to  capacity, operational priorities, resources and lack of focus on loyalty as a whole. The main thing is you are using your loyalty program. Then, over time you can optimize and improve it to better interact, engage and incentivize your customers.

Below are the basic things you can do right now to enhance your loyalty program to retain more customers. Details of how to implement them can all be found in our Help Centre.

1. Create a loyalty page*

If you don’t have a loyalty page, then create one within minutes.

Having a loyalty page makes sure the loyalty program is part of your store’s customer journey. You can also link any marketing communication, such as newsletters, to the loyalty page to keep your program in the mind of newly acquired customers. 

Creating a loyalty program might sound complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve developed a Loyalty Page Editor that allows you to instantly create one that is on-brand and fits into your store experience. Create one today by following our help doc, learn more by watching our dedicated feature video and see some examples from our merchants below.

*Available for Advanced and Plus plan merchants.

2. Turn on post-purchase signup and referrals*

Incentivize first time buyers with loyalty program perks.

There is no better time to promote your loyalty and referral program than straight after a guest has made a purchase. 

Try setting up a notification that alerts guest checkouts after they’ve completed an order that encourages them to sign up to your loyalty program and redeem points they earned from the purchase. You can also A/B test post-purchase sign up campaigns by targeting 50% of your guest shoppers with a notification on the Thank you page.

For referrals, timing is key. Immediately after a purchase is the best time to market your referral program to a customer. With the post-purchase referrals feature, after your customers have completed a purchase on your site, a pop up notification will appear explaining how they can unlock additional rewards for making referrals.

Don’t forget to make your referral program unique by customizing the reward you offer when a successful referral has been made. For example, you could offer variable points depending on which tier a customer is in. This enhances the experience for your VIP customers and makes sure you award both the referrer and referee with a valuable perk.

You can easily and quickly set up these features using our help docs. 

*Available to Plus plan merchants only.

3. Automate your loyalty marketing

Remind and incentivize your new customers to return to your store more often with reward reminder emails.

Not only does it save you time and resources to have loyalty email templates ready to go. But it also helps automate your loyalty marketing, using personalized loyalty data, to bring customers back to your store. 

Customers who have met the right criteria will be automatically sent loyalty marketing emails to remind them of your loyalty program and bring them back to your store to spend points and redeem rewards. Redeeming loyalty members have 164% higher annual average spend than non-loyalty members (LoyaltyLion platform analysis, 2020).

Loyalty emails can include:

• Welcome to the loyalty program – have a meaningful first interaction with your customer by informing them about your unique loyalty program
• Reward available – let your customers know what rewards they have waiting for them to redeem
• Monthly reward reminder – keep your loyalty program consistently in the front of customers’ minds
• Points expiring soon – create the fear of missing out and incentivize customers to redeem
• Referral email – automate a referral email when customers refer their friends and family

Turn them on and configure them to meet your brand and store presence. Want some inspiration? Take a look at what some of our merchants have done here.

4. Integrate with one of our review partners

Award user generated content to boost your SEO rankings and leverage the positive touchpoint to send loyalty-centric marketing.

If you are using a review platform then you must take advantage of our integrations with the best in class selection of review platforms. Integrate and award your customers for generating user content that boosts your SEO rankings and builds trust.

Reviews also provide a positive social interaction for you to send loyalty-centric marketing comms. Turn your reviewers into referrers by switching on automated emails that prompt and encourage customers who leave a review that’s more than three stars to refer their friends.

Visit our Help Centre to learn more and optimise your loyalty program to supercharge your customer retention strategy.