Gone are the days when a quality product and exceptional customer service could retain business. Building solid and lasting relationships with your customers are necessary now to succeed. And guess what? Email loyalty programs are among the most effective ways to build these relationships.
Think of these programs as giving back to your loyal customers. Who doesn’t want to feel rewarded and welcome by the company they trust their money with? Surveys have revealed that 52% of customers will join a loyalty program if presented with one.
But how do you leverage these programs and incorporate them into your email marketing? In this article, we will explore what email loyalty programs are, their benefits, best practices, examples, and templates.
What Are Email Loyalty Programs?
Email loyalty programs are marketing campaigns to reward customers for their engagement and loyalty. As the name suggests, these campaigns use emails to send promotions and discounts. They encourage your customers to continue doing business with you.
Apart from retaining customers, these programs aim to collect customer data that you can use to improve your offerings and give customers a personalized experience.
Restaurant loyalty programs include welcome emails, VIP offers and reminder campaigns. Each of these serves a different purpose. You can even use a CRM to segment your customers based on their preferences, loyalty, and lifetime value to send automated emails.
Loyalty Programs Email Marketing: Why You Should Use Them Together?
Loyalty programs and email marketing work together quite well. Businesses commonly use email as the preferred channel to distribute rewards and incentives. Email marketing provides various benefits that make email loyalty programs successful such as:
- Affordable Marketing: Email is a highly profitable way to reach a large audience without breaking the bank. You can land in your customers’ inboxes with just a few clicks. Email marketing platforms often provide templates that lower the production cost and increase the ROI.
- Personalized Campaigns: Email marketing helps you learn customers’ preferences and behavior. Using these insights, you can create customized messages to make them feel relevant and engaged with your brand. Such campaigns are effective in building customer loyalty and retention.
- Automated Messages: With this email marketing feature, you can divide your customers into categories and set up triggered emails based on their behaviors. These emails are abandoned cart emails, welcome series, or incentives.
- Professional Outlook: Email is a popular and professional source of business communication. It builds credibility and makes people trust your brand.
Email marketing is also an effective way to communicate with customers about their loyalty program status. Showing them their progress encourages customers to interact more and increase their scores. Many examples of email marketing done right if you are looking for inspiration online.
Types of Email Loyalty Programs
Email loyalty programs depend on factors such as a customer’s loyalty, customer lifetime value, preferences, and special days. This means that there are numerous different loyalty programs you can offer. These are the best type of programs and emails you can quickly implement:
- Referral Programs: When customers refer your brand to their friends and family, you can use these programs to offer them incentives for the referral.
- Welcome Emails: Whenever a new customer signs up for your email loyalty program, you can send them a series of welcome emails. This way, you can let them know that you have added them to your business family and make them feel engaged.
- Birthday Programs: Think of these as a birthday gift to your customers, where you can offer them special discounts or free products on their birthdays. Because who needs cakes and balloons when your customers can have a discounted shopping spree?
- VIP Programs: These programs are for the brand’s most loyal customers. They allow you to offer them exclusive offers, such as early access to sales, personalized product recommendations, or free shipping.
- Loyalty Programs with Points: These programs award points to customers for each purchase or interaction. Once these points reach a specific number, customers can redeem them for discounts, free products, and exclusive offers.
- Anniversary Programs: This email loyalty program helps you reward customers for their loyalty over a specific period.
- Tiered Programs: This is where you categorize your customers based on their level of loyalty. The benefits they receive depend on how much they interact with your brand.
Loyalty Programs Email Examples
Before creating email loyalty programs, you must clearly understand your audience and goals. It would be best if you also got some inspiration from the top players on the field. So, here are some of the best loyalty programs email examples we have seen.
- L’Occitane Feedback Requests: Asking for feedback means that you care about your customers. L’Occitane adopted this in their email and asked readers to complete a short survey by saying, “We’re curating your experience.” What could be more considerate than this? But don’t go overboard with this, as it can annoy your customers.
- Tuft and Needle’s Social Responsibility Email: Tuft and Needle came out with an email campaign that said, “Your purchase plants a tree.” As the climate is one of the main concerns, this email was very effective for a social cause and driving sales.
- Hair for The Girls Welcome Email: All it takes to make an excellent first impression is to give back something. Hair for The Girls did this perfectly by sending a welcome email with a coupon for free shipping whenever someone signed up on their website.
- Saffron Avenue’s New Product Email: Saffron Avenue emailed about their new customizable product. They put a clear CTA button that told customers exactly what to expect. Using the line “only three available,” they created a sense of urgency and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
6 Benefits of Email Loyalty Programs
Email loyalty programs can be the ultimate savior for businesses looking to increase sales and retain existing customers. Email marketing should be part of your marketing strategy because it is simple and effective.
All you need is a click of a button, and you can make your customers feel attached to your brand. But this is not all; loyalty programs can also do wonders for your email marketing and overall business growth. Below are some of the benefits you can reap.
Email Loyalty Programs Benefit #1: Improved Customer Engagement
When customers sign up for your email loyalty programs, you can send them customized messages. This makes them relate with you and urges them to engage more with your business. For example, when you send a welcome email, customers are more likely to remember you.
Using these techniques in your email marketing can help you personalize your customer’s experience and increase engagement.
Email Loyalty Programs Benefit #2: Improved Customer Experience
Email loyalty programs allow you to improve your customer’s experience through personalization.
One way to improve your customer’s experience is to use first names in the subject lines. Addressing someone by their name gives a sense of familiarity and enables you to connect emotionally with them. Another way to enhance user experience is to provide exclusive offers based on their preferences.
Email Loyalty Programs Benefit #3: Increased Customer Loyalty
Free products, discounts, and incentives make customers feel valued and appreciated. Moreover, with personalized offers, you can make the customers feel you understand and know them. This makes them more likely to remain loyal to your brand.
With email loyalty programs, you can effectively communicate with your customers about the happenings in your business. This continued communication keeps the customers engaged and can lead to increased customer retention over time.
Email Loyalty Programs Benefit #4: Access to Valuable Data
You can access valuable insights when customers engage with your business through email loyalty programs. Using this data, you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing. You can understand what is working and what you should improve.
These insights also help you understand your customers more deeply, allowing you to enhance their experience.
Email Loyalty Programs Benefit #5: Increased Customer Lifetime Value
One of the most important benefits of email loyalty programs is increased customer lifetime value (CLV). These programs encourage customers to make repeat purchases, give referrals, and increase engagement. This, in return, leads to higher CLV.
Again, personalization makes a tremendous impact on businesses and the CLV as tailored offerings improve the overall customer experience.
Email Loyalty Programs Benefit #6: Better Sales and Revenue
Another benefit that email loyalty programs offer is better sales. You can inform and encourage your customers to purchase by sending news and updates.
Discounts and offers urge people to refer your business to friends and relatives, resulting in new customers and increased revenue. As these programs help you retain customers, they are more likely to make repeat purchases and drive more sales for your business.
Email Loyalty Programs Best Practices
Email loyalty programs are inexpensive, but their success depends on your efforts to get them right. Here are some of the best practices for creating an effective loyalty program. Using these, you can retain customers and increase engagement.
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Easy to Sign Up: A loyalty program should be easy to sign up for. If customers have to roam around and figure out what to do independently, they will become annoyed.
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Clarity: Write clearly and define what your customers will get if they join your program. This helps them know what to expect and increases your chance of convincing them.
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Personalization: Personalize your emails according to the behavior and preferences of your audience.
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Convincing Subject Line: If your subject line cannot grab the reader’s attention, your loyalty program email will fail. So, make sure to write a relatable and convincing subject line.
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Call to Action (CTA): At the end of your email, include a clear CTA button to tell your customers what their next step should be.
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Regular Updates: Don’t forget your customers after the first email. Give them regular updates about your business and their progress in the email loyalty programs toward earning a reward.
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Desirable Rewards: Make sure people need or like the rewards you offer. For example, offering free lipstick with men’s shoes won’t significantly impact your marketing.
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Segmentation: Divide your audience into categories and send automated, customized messages.
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Monitor and analyze: After setting up an email loyalty program, monitoring and diagnosing its success and impact on your business and marketing is essential. This will help you make better, informed decisions.
Loyalty Programs Email Template
To give you a better idea of what your email loyalty programs should look like and to put the above advice into action, here is a loyalty programs email template.
Subject Line: [Client Name], weekly discounts await you!
Hi [Client Name],
Thank you so much for subscribing to our loyalty program; you are now part of the family!
As a member, here’s what you will receive:
- Weekly discounts
- Early access to sales
- Birthday discounts
- Points for every purchase
Your feedback matters as people like you make us what we are. So, if you have any suggestions or questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We look forward to serving you!
Best regards,
[Your name]
How To Use Wi-Fi Marketing Software To Run Email Loyalty Programs
WiFi marketing software is a powerful tool for running email loyalty programs. Wi-Fi marketing means giving free WiFi access to customers who walk into your workplace. People sign up with their email addresses, which helps you build an email list. You can then use this email list to launch your loyalty program.
Moreover, when people use your WiFi network, you can easily monitor their activity and identify their likes and dislikes. Using this information, you can create targeted campaigns and help them engage with your brand. Furthermore, when someone joins your contact list, you can send automated emails, such as a welcome email with a discount.
Conclusion
In conclusion, email loyalty programs are highly beneficial for driving sales and engagement. With the right loyalty program, you can retain customers, make them feel valued, and improve business growth.
They can help you build fruitful relationships with your customers by using WiFi marketing solutions. With a carefully crafted email, your customers won’t be able to leave the page without engaging with your business.
If you are looking for a WiFi marketing solution that allows you to build a list of contact in no time and run email marketing without hassle, check Beambox.
Beambox is a WiFi marketing system that helps you gather data about your customers and automate the most effective marketing initiative for growing your business. Start your free trial today!
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