How to Achieve Customer Delight and Satisfaction?
A great customer experience must be purposefully created if you want to keep customers and spread good word of mouth.
Customer satisfaction goes beyond simply answering support tickets and offering the bare minimum of services to convince them to buy your goods. You’ll have to perform above expectations. The good news is that this leads to more client loyalty, more peer-to-peer recommendations, and less customer churn.
Who is in charge of satisfying clients and prospects?
Let’s zoom out and look at the concept through the inbound technique to better understand who is in charge of ensuring that customers are delighted.
Attract, engage, and delight customers are the three main elements of the inbound process. The inbound experience is fundamentally a customer-focused mode of operation. It’s not only about closing deals; it’s about efficiently assisting individuals in overcoming their issues and obstacles.
Every team contributes to the inbound process. The “attract” stage, which attracts clients to your firm, is driven by your marketing and customer service departments. The lead is subsequently “engaged” by the marketing and sales teams, who encourage conversion. The flywheel is completed by the sales and service teams by providing the customer with a wonderful purchase and first-rate customer service
Customer Delight vs. Customer Satisfaction
Exceeding clients’ expectations is the process of creating a lasting, good experience around your brand, product, or service. Simply exceeding customers’ expectations will result in customer satisfaction.
Use these tactics to Captivate your customers
1. Become more responsive
The modern consumer is not a patient person. They don’t want to wait, whether they are a prospective consumer with a query about your offerings or an established client in need of assistance.
There are a few techniques to react quicker:
- Utilize chatbots (that can pass the customer on to a human agent if needed)
- Set up autoresponder emails to inform clients when a response will be provided.
- Make sure that salesmen and customer service representatives can easily access customer information.
- Get everyone on the same page so you don’t have to spend time transferring information between teams.
2. Be dependable across all channels
Customers anticipate consistently superior service across a wide range of channels. Additionally, it feels broken when the experience varies from one channel to another. It is simpler to remain consistent if efforts are made to break down data and service silos.
3. Be Unexpected
You must leave a lasting impression on your consumers if you want your business to stand out from rivals. Even though your main objective is to address the customer’s issue, you can make a lasting impression by going above and beyond for your clients. Customers expect to have their requirements met, but they are genuinely surprised when your team goes above and beyond for them.
4. Encourage your staff to delight your clients
Giving your support workers the freedom to make their own decisions so that they can wow your clients is known as empowerment. Additionally, it calls for well-trained staff members who can spot opportunities to provide outstanding service, alter consumer perception, and ultimately make customers happy.
What are Brand Strategies to Increase Engagement?
Brand engagement refers to customer loyalty and attachment to brands. Consumer engagement, which increases business sales, is at the heart of marketing strategy.
Customers who are highly engaged are more likely to make larger purchases. Furthermore, highly engaged customers are more likely to share information about your company and products through their social networks. Their devotion generates word-of-mouth advertising, which is a surefire winner for any company looking to increase sales.
Brands make the right decision when they prioritize value creation over revenue generation. As a result, customers are completely satisfied because they are getting the best deal possible.
Brand Engagement vs. Brand Awareness
Both phrases are part of the foundational ideas of brand marketing. Brand engagement strategy suggests that any brand should pursue a number of goals in order to be successful. They consist of brand equity, advocacy, brand engagement, brand loyalty, brand identity, and brand image.
When developing your marketing strategy, brand recognition comes first. It calls for marketing initiatives designed to increase brand recognition. The ability of prospective customers to distinguish your brand from rivals and remember your items is essential. In other words, your brand should be the first to occur to people’s minds when they have a need for a product they haven’t used before. To do this, brands heavily invest in advertising on a variety of platforms.
Increase brand engagement as soon as you’ve raised brand recognition. In order to make a purchase, they must be intrigued by your business. So, allow them to communicate with you through a variety of methods and make them know that you value their feedback. More sales will result from a stronger relationship with your audience and more brand engagement.
How to Increase Customer Engagement?
You’ve probably noticed that major brands and businesses encourage their customers to leave product reviews on their official social media pages.
Customers can always share their opinions and experiences through testimonials. This is a critical component of a successful customer interaction strategy. If your services are good, encouraging consumer feedback will help your brand’s positive reputation spread organically and interpersonally.
Practice the Four-I Strategy
- Involvement: Make your audience an active participant in your campaign to increase engagement with your brand. To help clients feel more connected to your brand, your business should promote various benefits and rewards programs.
- Influence: People look for advice from celebrities and influencers they respect and want to imitate, especially in the social media age. Work with the people who your potential consumers most admire to sway them.
- Interaction: Two must dance the tango! In this case, the adage is entirely appropriate. Brands and customers must interact for any business to succeed. Additionally, contact will increase customer and brand trust.
- Intimacy: Engage in direct communication with, and outreach to, customers at various levels and via a variety of channels. By doing this, you’ll be able to understand what your customers are thinking and meet their wants.
Consider the Value of Mobile Apps
The online brand marketing strategies that businesses use have drastically changed as a result of the rise of smartphones.
Top businesses and brands not only have expert websites but also have mobile applications that are easy to use.
Customers may use these applications to get a bird’s-eye perspective of all the goods they can buy, give reviews, rate the goods, and ask inquiries. There are many of applications that also compare pricing for a certain goods.
Post high-quality material on social media for digital marketing
More international firms are using social media and search engine optimization to strengthen their bonds with current customers. You should first create top-notch interactive content if you want to encourage your users or consumers. Strong content will spread more often on social media and among friends, enhancing the reputation of your brand.
Why engagement matters?
There are more channels for communicating with customers than ever before. This means that businesses have several options for attracting and retaining customers. It also implies that competitors have access to the same opportunities.
Brands must actively work to connect and interact with consumers at every opportunity in order to increase consumer engagement. Be consistent with all of your consumer engagement strategies. Create great end-to-end customer experiences from the first interaction all the way through the brand journey by crafting messages that are consistent with the brand and relevant to the target audience.
Provide customers with a consistent and great experience, and you’ll gain their involvement, loyalty, and trust.
How Does Gamification Increase User Engagement
Incentives and reward schemes may be approached in a novel way with gamification. Gamification can enhance consumer engagement and improves relationships.
Gamification strategies are being accommodated by businesses all around the world in their online training program for staff members. Gamification has proven to be a successful strategy for engaging users and getting them excited about your brand, goods, and services. This helps to build stronger relationships with customers and entices them to use your products and services repeatedly.
How Does Gamification Work?
Gamification is often known as the integration of game aspects into company plans. Marketing initiatives like consumer incentives often produce superb results for the user and the brand with gamification strategies.
The concept is that clients and staff would participate in a game-like activity, where they accumulate points through purchases or other desired actions. If they achieve a specific level or objective, they receive incentives like discounts or free items.
Brands now have even more opportunities to include gamification into their outreach initiatives as a result of rising digital engagement. Customers can become involved via the business’ website or through an app, for instance. The use of gamification by companies to engage consumers on social media is another common trend nowadays.
How Does Gamification Increase Engagement?
Customers are growing more skeptical of internet advertising as a result of either being hesitant to divulge too much personal information or having doubts about the promises being made by a business. Customers will like the enjoyable alternative that gamification offers, where they will experience a revitalizing feeling of creativity.
Gamification is a tool that brands may employ in many innovative ways to engage users or customers in interesting activities. Gamification simplifies the connection between action and reward for the users. Customers are more likely to purchase a product or engage in an activity for a clear reward.
When an incentive or reward is included as an outcome, the final product becomes more enticing. Gamification can be incredibly successful at keeping customers engaged because it appeals to their need for accomplishment and competitiveness.
Customers that take part in gamification feel more powerful and in control than they would if they were being fed into a brand’s marketing plan. They also understand how important it is to the brand that they are satisfied since the business went the extra mile to provide a superior experience.
Advantages of Gamification
Gamification allows users to advance through several “levels” of the activities depending on their effort and actions. Incentivized activities can include purchase, review, personal feedback, social sharing, etc. Users can experience a sense of satisfaction after completing these tasks and gaining the prize points.
Adding gamification to client engagement initiatives has several key advantages, including:
- Increasing user interest and involvement
- Boost awareness of your brand
- provide the business with useful client data
- Boost client retention
- Maintain relationships with consumers
- Use incentives to reinforce a behavior
Simply said, gamification raises user engagement by providing clients with distinctive and enjoyable methods to engage with their preferred companies.
Gamification In Action
What evidence is there that gamification is effective? Major corporations like Starbucks and Dominos are just two examples of the many businesses that are using similar strategies, and the outcomes have been good.
By using the Starbucks mobile app, Starbucks incorporates gamification into its rewards program. Two Stars are awarded for every $1 paid when a consumer uses the app or a registered Starbucks Card to pay for their order. Customers receive free things when they hit milestones like 25 or 50 Stars. This arrangement is an excellent illustration of how a business can utilize gamification to keep people interested in its applications and goods.
Another excellent example is Domino’s Pizza. A “Slot Machine” option was added to their mobile app a few years ago, allowing customers to shake their phone to have their pizza toppings automatically selected if they were unsure of what they wanted. Customers are more likely to want to share a novelty-driven gamification feature like this with their friends and family.
The way people engage with companies is continuously changing thanks to gamification. Improved mobile app design and AI-driven marketing methods are just two examples of the new technologies being offered that further strengthen these approaches.
How Gamification Improves Customer Engagement and Retention
Many different components of a business, such as customers, users, workers, and technology, one of the most difficult challenges for organizations today is customer engagement. It is critical to employ effective consumer interaction strategies. Customer engagement methods have a direct impact on the company’s overall profitability and ability to generate money because they affect apps and other digital products.
If a company’s users are highly engaged, it can increase brand awareness and loyalty while lowering customer acquisition costs and improving customer satisfaction and retention. As a result, employing the best customer engagement techniques will reduce a company’s churn rate, increase the number of active users and time spent using your app, and promote user growth via recommendations and word-of-mouth.
A Successful Strategy for Marketing
Gamification can be used in marketing by providing interactive and satisfying solutions that can be integrated into your website, app, or email campaigns. Gamification instils a sense of competitiveness in customers, motivating them to strive for goals and rewards.
Relational Interaction
To increase client acquisition and retention, gamification can be used. Gamification should give users the chance to share their rewards, accomplishments, and “plots” with friends or other users. A company will have more opportunity to attract new consumers and incur reduced customer acquisition costs if it has social connections with its customers.
Use games to teach your audience
For instance, John Findlay, cofounder of Launch fire, says, “Imagine you’re a bank that’s wanting to gain new customers.” “Develop a [free] online game that pushes users to build a financial empire by making wise investment decisions, rather than providing commercials that boast about how your bank [or financial service business] is different.”
“Nest branded messaging and pertinent advice within the game so players learn more about your offerings as they play” is a strategy to increase engagement. Offer some sort of “prize,” such as free checking for a year or a $100 savings bond for “winning” the game, to further boost interest and persuade players to register an account.
Using an entertaining, educational game, advertise a new good or service
Cite the example of a sports retailer using a racing-style game to advertise new running shoes. “In the game, they might give suggestions on the best footwear for long distance running. Then, players might use the instruction to “run faster,” score more points, and win the game.
Comprehensive business planning
If you only take into account one component of your organization, it is quite difficult to build a meaningful engagement through gamification. Using data on consumer traffic patterns and purchasing patterns to integrate behavioral economics into website or mobile app testing would enable businesses to take a comprehensive approach to company planning and will benefit businesses in the long term.
What Brand Engagement Would Look Like Post This Pandemic
Let’s just agree to the fact that the road ahead for most of the brands, big or small, is punctuated by the novel Coronavirus. And everybody is hustling to find new ways to engage with their customers during this pandemic and get their businesses back on track. Zara owner closing down on 16% of its global outlets and investing in online platforms is one such example.
One of my favorite quotes is from Abraham Lincoln. He said, “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” So my dear marketers, hold on to that perseverance for a little longer, and keep hustling, because perseverance with the right technique will help you reap the benefits.
Here are some simple quick tips about brand engagement that will help you gain just the right velocity for your brand during these tough times:
1. Get your online presence right, if you haven’t already
Online marketing is expected to play a bigger role in the longer run. Pay attention to mobile first approach for your websites and apps, as an average Indian is spending around 4 hours a day on their smartphones. Your customers, in all likelihood, would choose a brand that provides a better user experience.
Inditex, parent company of Zara and Massimo Dutti among other brands, is investing $1billion over the next three years to improve their online presence and an additional $1.7 billion on upgrading its stores to become more integrated with its online platform by deploying advanced technology solutions.
“According to research conducted by Qualtrics, when it comes to brand communications, Indians are more interested in the operational impact of COVID-19 compared to sales and promotional marketing.”
2. Keep your business information up to date
Update your customers about your operating hours. You may also want to update your address on Google. When updating your customers about the measures of cleanliness, sanitization and precautions you are taking, try not to overwhelm them with unnecessary information. They are probably already flooded with a lot of information. Try to provide them with helpful information only.
3. Set clear guidelines as per World Health Organization (WHO) protocol
Make sure that your customers, especially existing ones, know about the safety measures your brand has undertaken so that they don’t shy away from engaging with you. Target new customers with the help of precise targeting techniques. Organize free webinars to solve their queries. Host virtual events with your channel partners.
4. Use multichannel to communicate with them
Now is the time to go that extra mile with the communication strategies. Be creative yet relevant with your message. Use relevant influencers to reach your target audience.
“The top three messages respondents wanted to hear were how the business is responding to the crisis (75 per cent), the impact on the distribution (48 per cent), and information on products and services (48 per cent).”
5. Reward customers who regularly interact with your brand
Regardless of whether the customer made a purchase or just interacted with your brand, try rewarding them with some bonuses in the form of loyalty points or just a personalized message saying ‘thank you’ and offering them a discount coupon on their next purchase. This will indeed be a delighting experience for them.
6. Be Sensitive
The last thing you want when engaging with your customers is to sound salsey. Nobody is interested to know the reasons to buy your product. But they may be looking for solutions to their problems. Try selling solutions and not products. Provide them with ‘at-home brand user experience’. Try spreading some joy. This will help build a long term relationship with them.
RewardPort specializes in loyalty marketing programs, corporate loyalty card, dealer incentive programs, dealer loyalty, channel incentive, distributor incentive program, B2B loyalty programs, customer loyalty cards & marketing partner programs. Get a free consultation today.
Top Sales Promotion Trends To Emerge Post Coronavirus
Any form of promotion during Covid is quite a sensitive matter. There is a very fine line between notifying your customers and annoying them. If you are planning to get in touch with your customers, then you must know that by the time your communication reaches them they must be already annoyed to the core with hundreds of emails lying unopened in their mailboxes with subjects on Covid.
So before you initiate the promotions, you might want to check out the sales promotions trends that would emerge during this pandemic.
The language of all the promotional communication ought to be sensitive and empathic. If the customers find you lacking compassion they won’t bother to engage, let alone buy your brand. Maintaining that human touch during campaigns has become more important now than ever. When informing your customers about your processes and policies during Covid, brands need to show that they are being responsible.
Creativity and joyful communication is going to play a big role during Sales Promotion campaigns.
With customers getting bored, locked in their houses, brands can make use of this opportunity by spreading some joy among their customers with the help of creative and engaging campaigns. This will not just help in better and easier conversions but also give a good brand recall value.
With most of the media houses and studios shut, use of social media influencers would be a great idea at this point in time. According to a survey conducted by Hammer Kopf Consumer Surveys, amid the lockdown, in India, there has been 87% increase in social media usage. Brands should utilize this trend and hire relevant and authentic influencers for the sales promotion campaigns.
Offer Discounts and Promotions.
BOGO (Buy one Get one) is here to stay. The purchasing power of the consumers has been immensely affected. Also it has been observed that the consumers who can afford to buy are delaying purchases. A slashed price would motivate the consumers to make the purchase without further procrastination. Along with price cuts, there can be all forms of BOGO offers.
Free samples of products or online trials of services is a great way to launch a new brand during Covid. When giving out samples, make sure that the consumers know about the safety policies that your brand is following like contactless deliveries, best practices of hygiene and so on.
Apply Targeted Promotions.
Something that your consumer needed earlier may not be required now. It is important to understand their needs and accordingly craft the promotion strategies. According to a Harvard Business study, regardless of which group consumers belong to, they prioritize consumption by sorting products and services into four categories:
- Essentials: are necessary for survival or perceived as central to well-being.
- Treats: are indulgences whose immediate purchase is considered justifiable.
- Postponables: are needed or desired items whose purchase can be reasonably put off.
- Expendables: are perceived as unnecessary or unjustifiable.
It is important for brands to classify their products or service and bundle it appropriately to have a successful campaign with a desired outcome. For example: Bundling an essential item with a treat can become quite a desired combination for a customer.
Giving out ‘At-Home reward’ coupons or gift vouchers is another unique way of sales promotion during this pandemic. Now that everybody is at home, brands should switch to rewards that can be redeemed at home, online. For example, they can give away reward coupons for online streaming channels, food delivery apps, online learning platforms, fitness apps, e-commerce websites and so on.
RewardPort specializes in loyalty marketing programs, corporate loyalty card, dealer incentive programs, dealer loyalty, channel incentive, distributor incentive program, B2B loyalty programs, customer loyalty cards & marketing partner programs. Get a free consultation today.
How Covid 19 has changed the channel incentive strategies
The Novel Coronavirus has impacted almost everything, right from people’s lives to businesses to economies. According to the IMF, the global economy is expected to shrink by over 3 per cent in 2020 – the steepest slowdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s. These are indeed unusual times. Despite all this, there are brands who have accepted the events and taken it all in their stride. These brands are doing amazingly well with their channel strategies too.
Let’s look at what changes are recommended to be done in your channel incentive strategies due to this pandemic, and how you can benefit from them.
- Your channel partners, customers and employees are most likely distressed.
- Don’t let their morale go down.
- Create an ecosystem to uplift them.
- Try to meet their needs.
- Guide them about the safe and best practices that can be implemented to ease the operations.
- Let them know that the brand is with them in this together.
- Hold joint webinars, virtual events to motivate them.
Brands should consider suspending all non critical events and sticking with only the necessary ones, through digital medium, preferably.
“According to research conducted by Qualtrics, nearly 70 per cent of people in India believe it is important for brands to take care of their employees and customers and they should not take advantage of the crisis to maximise profits.”
Keeping short term targets is a good strategy during this crisis. Brands should work in conjunction with their teams and partners to understand their priorities, both core and short term functions. These should not be imposed on them instead should be suggested by them. These functions should be easily achievable. The completion of such functions will itself enable a sense of achievement among all the involved members.
Sticking to channel incentive strategies based on performance would not be such a good plan for now
Brands would need to be flexible, and sensitive towards their channel partners and employees. Also they should not limit the benefits to only performers, this is the time to be inclusive and empathic towards everybody.
Design tailored initiatives for small and medium sized partners
These initiatives could contain solutions such as digital assets, guidelines for safe engagements, tutorials to educate them some digital techniques and suchlike. Brands who are doing so are being praised for passing the initiatives to their channel partners and employees, and needless to say are winning minds and hearts.
Maintain regular communication with the partners and the employees
The study by Qualtrics suggests that Indians want brands to communicate with them. Around 50 per cent of the respondents said their trust in the brands they regularly engaged with has increased. The sound of the communication should not be tone-deaf but empathic.
Drive positive engagements and seek continuous feedback
The engagement practices have changed now. There are rewards which can be used at home, aka At-home Rewards. Rewards like Digital Entertainment vouchers, online learning vouchers, online shopping vouchers, and so on are getting quite hit now.
RewardPort specializes in loyalty marketing programs, corporate loyalty card, dealer incentive programs, dealer loyalty, channel incentive, distributor incentive program, B2B loyalty programs, customer loyalty cards & marketing partner programs. Get a free consultation today.
Emerging Loyalty Marketing Trends Post Corona
It is absolutely appalling how Coronavirus has changed our world dramatically in just a few months’ time. At one end people are trying to save their lives and at the other end, they are trying to save their livelihood. But if the facts are to be believed, people are bouncing back stronger than ever and so are the businesses. In fact, according to the research data by GlobalWebIndex, one in ten Indian shoppers would buy a luxury item first after the lockdown lifts.
Also according to the Valassis consumer survey, 48% consumers will continue purchasing from the same brands they always do. Seems like the pandemic is not completely upsetting the brand loyalty. Well that’s a breather isn’t it?
So let us check out what loyalty marketing trends would look like now onwards.
Data from Bazaarvoice shows that online shopping activity experienced significant y-o-y growth in April 2020 for both page views (88%) and order count (96%). Brands must be available on ecommerce platforms now more than ever. They should reward their stakeholders with online shopping vouchers for sites like Nykaa, Fynd, The Souled Store & more.
Customers would expect easy and instant redemptions through online mediums
Spending power has plummeted drastically so it is time to be easy when giving out rewards. Brands should be careful with the medium of redemption and make it online. Customers will prefer rewards that can be redeemed online, quickly.
For example, they would avoid going into crowded and closed spaces such as theatres and would prefer coupons of online streaming platforms such as Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Netflix etc. Incidentally, Netflix India has reported more than double rise in its subscriber base in the first quarter of 2020. While last year it forecasted the subscriber base to reach 10 million by the end of 2020, it has already touched 15.8 million during the first quarter of 2020. And now it is aiming to grab new 100 million Indian subscribers. So much for pandemic and chill.
Brands should aim at a rewarding system that has something for everyone in the family
As everybody is locked under one roof, brands would not want to upset a family member. They can include reward plans for kids like home activity box vouchers from Podsquad, Magic Crate etc. Plans for fitness enthusiasts which can have Home Fitness Vouchers from Cult.Fit, Shilpa Shetty App etc. Rewards for foodies with vouchers from Zomato, Swiggy etc., and so on and so forth.
Marketing in this pandemic era has empathy as its soul
So, whatever you do, do not miss out on showing empathy in your communication, processes, and all the interactions. Study from Qualtrics shows that 70% consumers trust brands who take care of their employees, customers, dealers, partners, and stakeholders. In the four levels of loyalty, trust plays a pivotal role. No amount of reward would make them more loyal to your brand than building a long term relationship with them, at the time of crisis.
RewardPort specializes in loyalty marketing programs, corporate loyalty card, dealer incentive programs, dealer loyalty, channel incentive, distributor incentive program, B2B loyalty programs, customer loyalty cards & marketing partner programs. Get a free consultation today.
Why Is Targeting Your Audience Important When Deciding Your Offers?
Target marketing is the most effective form of marketing to fulfill the end goals of each business i.e. ROI and sales. Any marketing strategy that does not keep into consideration the target audiences will always end up frozen in time with no effective results. Such vague communications never reach out to the prospective buyer and fall flat on the ground. Targeting audiences is a very important component of the marketing mix.
To understand the concept even better we have chalked out the benefits of targeting your audiences which are as follows –
Set Goals and Achieve Them
There is nothing more satisfactory than the fact that you set goals and achieve them too. Streamlining your efforts towards the designated goals can help you get great ROI. Scattered efforts in reaching out to a scattered set of audiences will not be worth your while. Talk to a designated group of audiences who share similar buying decisions and have similar buying patterns.
Gather Information and Interpret
Measure the results of the campaigns you run and interpret what worked. Divide the data into fragments and understand what percentage of your customers enjoy what offers and use them too. Experiment with a different set of audiences offering them different discounts and offers. This will help you understand your audiences and reduce wasteful efforts.
Know What works for you and Why
Understanding demographics and streamlining target audience is not an easy task. It needs consistent efforts and some experiments to understand what campaigns work and what offers work for your target audiences. Take time and understand what did not work for your business and enjoy what worked of course!
Here are a few tips of targeting to your audience –
Talk to and Benefit a Defined Set of Audiences
To save in time and effort, a business must understand that talking directly to a defined set of audiences will deeply affect them and they will feel the connection. Any offer or communication that connect with the desired audiences will hit the bullseye and make way for more orders.
Be Effective and Earn Customers Loyalty
Offers are lucrative and the higher the gratification the better. Ease of using discounts and discount coupons can help you as a brand to stay in memory retention resulting in getting customer loyalty. Bring effective in communication is the key too.
Opt for a Focus Centric Approach
As a business streamlining your focus can help you outshine your competitors and help you earn customers. Focus driven efforts are always fruitful in reducing errors and winning a loyal customer base.
Keep an Eye on Changing Trends
The market around is evolving each second and keeping pace with the change is the key. Keep a check on the latest trends ruling the charts and offer what you have at the right time, at the right place. This way you will hit the target audiences and offer what they want.
Putting effective efforts in decoding on how to target your audiences will eventually help in deciding offers for them. Keep in sight and stay together with the changing marketing trends will help you win business. Segregating your target audiences will help you offer them with the offers that best suit their needs. Like in the case of a company, one can easily opt for loyalty points for the audiences through loyalty program management tools.
Rewardport is an initiative that provides an end-to-end solution for any corporate in reward program management. Whether working separately or together. Through research and our collective expertise, we guide our clients with choices to help them motivate their people.
Role of Rewards in Driving “Value Sharing”
“I do not love rewards!”, said nobody. Rewards are always exciting and free vouchers always boost the motivation of the customers. Also, customer loyalty programs are the best way to drive value sharing in the business either by helping in buying decisions or keeping employees motivated to achieve a certain goal. The end goal of every business has to be to achieve the buyer trust and a brand name of its own which only can happen with the help of high sales and motivated employees. Both the driving forces can be kept happy with free goodies that come as a reward to them. Value Sharing is an extensive subject that includes not only building on buying decisions but also include other intangible good a customer can do to a brand in terms of helping in word of mouth or act as a repeat customer. In short, a reward will make a customer happy and a happy customer will help in adding to the value share for the business.
Here are certain points to help you understand the role of rewards in driving Value Sharing.
Satisfied Customer Base
Buying and purchasing is a daily activity a customer does but when the target audience shops he adds on to the credibility of the brand as a whole. On top of the quality products you promise, if the customer also gets a good discount or a buy one get one free option it will help in saving more and bring a purchase satisfaction to your customers. This will help you in retaining more customers.
Win Customer Trust
Winning a customer is one thing and retaining the existing customers is another. Most of the times major brands also indulge in a plan to do a lucky draw and only one winner wins which in fact makes a lot of people disappointed and sad who do not win the draw resulting in a reduction in sales and unhappy buyers. Winning customer trust is important.
Add More Customers
loyalty reward management programs in terms of discounts and sales often add on more footfall in your store or website and help in adding more customers to your database. Discounts and other rewards act as a driving force for the customers to invest more money in you than your competitor.
All in all, rewards are a win-win for both the buyers and the sellers where they gain in terms of a customer or retaining customer and the customer gets brands at reasonable prices. For more end to end reward program solutions, one can visit rewardport.in. Through research and collective expertise, we guide our clients with choices to help them motivate their people. Be its sales force, channel partners or employees. We motivate to enable people to do things differently, by developing their strengths, knowledge, and confidence. They care and focus to build a relationship with people… Forever.
Great sales promotion ideas to win New Customers
Nurturing relationships with the customers is a significant aspect to shape a brand. Sales promotion strategies can do wonders for your brand through retention and engagement. Sales promotion is the process of persuading a potential customer to engage with the brand and eventually buy the product or service.
A good sale promotion strategy can be effective at achieving a quick boost in sales but this “boost in sales” is mostly short-term. Many customers come back expecting or anticipating further promotions which is why brands have to continue coming up with different strategies to comply with the market behavior.
Here are some sales promotion ideas to make your campaigns successful:
Give away rewards
A compelling way to engage with consumers and motivate them to keep coming back to you is by giving them rewards. Offering the customers free credits or coupons on their next purchase is the perfect way to make them come back. It helps in increasing sales and also in improving the bottom line of your brand. So having a reward program in your sales promotion strategy is significant.
Personalize your brand
If your company is a massive faceless corporation, there’s a high chance that the customers would shy away from your brand. Giving a friendly face to your brand can help people connect to your product or service. It’s important for businesses to introduce themselves and share their story with the people. This is a simple yet effective technique to stand out and engage with the audience. Give your brand a voice, tell your story, add a character to your business if you can.
Create an urgency
Driving a ‘flash sale’ promotion is a great way to create urgency among the people and make them buy a product or a service, sooner rather than later. You can start with a teaser of the promotion and let people know about the upcoming sales. And when the timing is right, release your flash sales promotion.
Upgrade instead of price cuts
Upgrading your product is a better way to keeping your sales up rather than cutting down the prices. Giving some extra service or a product on the same price can appeal to potential consumers in a better way.
Momentum, scarcity, and credibility
Creating a momentum or anxiety before the sale, then making sure that in the middle of the sale the promotion becomes scarce, and ending the sale promotion at the promised time. These three things are very significant. Ending the promotion at the given time gives something for people to regret.
Free trials
Free trials are popular at attracting attention. Let’s take an example of Netflix and other streaming services who give out 1-month free trial before the customer has to pay. This one-month free trial creates addiction in the free trial period and when that addiction is taken away, the consumer is forced to pay for the service.
Videos
Using videos to make product demonstration is a very effective way to attract consumers. Offering special discounts and other offers in your video will also get your customers excited to make a purchase
Use social media
Using social media to give out coupons and discounts which are only applicable through social media is another way of engaging customers.
Volume discounts
Offering volume discounts is a great way of encouraging individuals and businesses to purchase goods in multiple units or in large quantities. Shoppers love volume discounts, so we often find business owners offering them to encourage sales.
Follow leads
Track your customers from the first contact to sale within the sales pipeline. Send and track emails, and alerts to help follow up with potential clients.
Gamification of your loyalty program – Is it possible?
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘Gamification’? Though it is seen as a game-changing tool for brand promotions, there is more to it. Yes. Gamification, as we know is an emerging trend and some of the brands have already been using consumer loyalty programs as a part of their marketing strategies.
In the context of brand promotion, gamification has become an integral part of the marketing structure with an increasing number of reward programs.
Gamification is not complex as it may sound. It only intensifies the value to an existing marketing program by using data-oriented engagement techniques to capture a customer’s attention.
Before we look at the possibilities of gamification in loyalty programs, let us go through the types of Gamification.
1. Progress tracking
This is undertaken to make people stay loyal to the brand by helping them keep a track of their performance in loyalty programs.
For example, an online program which has users to sign up for a course includes a system to track their progress until their final objective is completed. This encourages their potential leads and customers to use more content.
2. Reward level
This is an advanced version of a basic reward program. For instance, users can earn stars to win rewards at different levels of the program. Once a customer gets a specific number of stars, they become part of a special membership program where they are entitled to receive benefits throughout the year.
Now, this brings us to the possibilities of using gamification in loyalty programs and its subsequent benefits.
This is an advanced version of a basic reward program. For instance, users can earn stars to win rewards at different levels of the program. Once a customer gets a specific number of stars, they become part of a special membership program where they are entitled to receive benefits throughout the year.
Now, this brings us to the possibilities of using gamification in loyalty programs and its subsequent benefits.
- Firstly, it increases sign-ups for a program
- It increases product sales and revenue with continuous participation
- It encourages a customer’s willingness to be a part of loyalty rewards
- It brings more brand advocates who eventually become influential marketers
There is more possibility of bringing gamification to the loyalty programs as general human behaviour is tied to motivational factors. In other words, the user gains extensively through repeated efforts. If you want to retain your customers, gamification can help al it adds excitement to improve your brand’s marketing strategy.
Gamification in loyalty programs acts as catalysts to make users spend more time and effort to reach higher levels. This is probably one of the reasons why repeated discounted sales are often considered as the primary objective of a loyalty program. It makes it easier for users to express their appreciation, aiding the brand’s marketing goal. The extended reach will amplify your brand’s social worthiness along with the online ad spends.
Hence, yes gamification is possible. In fact, it brings a brand closer to its sales goals.
Whether a brand’s consumer wins a prize or gains maximum out of it, the game design inputs put in a marketing strategy brings positive feedback looping new customers. When a brand offers more than just amazing products and services with a sense of gamification in their loyalty programs, customers are sure to love the experience and be willing to come back.