Loyalty programs are offered by different retail stores, restaurant and hotel chains. These are very much in vogue today as it helps in building a good customer relations and also facilitates in retention of customers in a better way along with of course increasing the sales of the business manifolds. Such programs exhort the customers to continue availing products & services from the companies for a long time and come back to them for shopping. Loyalty programs include discount offers; access to new products in advance even before the regular customers, and sometimes free items. Such programs allow customers to get introduced to new brands and new products.

Increased Number of Offers and Discounts To Attract Customers:

These are the ways to ploy the customer’s mind – the customers will be naturally inclined to buy stuff when you provide discounts. The pricing strategies go like this – the customers tend to buy a costlier product when discounts are given on it; however, they refrain from buying the product which is considerably cheaper.
In addition to this, offers and discounts will make the customers more inclined towards the company. Here is an enumeration of the benefits of offers and discounts:

1. According to InMoment, two thirds of the customers either strictly do not buy products without discount or they evidently look for discount before making a purchase.
2. Interestingly, according to RetailMeNot, 65% of customers prioritize a great offer than the customer service of the brand.
3. 48% consumers would refrain from buying products of brands that don’t offer discounts.
4. 80% of consumers feel enticed to commence a first-time purchase with a brand, new to them if that brand has offers and discounts.
5. RetailMeNot mentions that 67% of consumers purchase items they hadn’t initially planned if a coupon or discount is provided on the item.

It is always recommended to make discounts or provide offers based on the customers’ history of purchase. Creating a unique ID for a loyalty-member will help to track the past records and frequency of the items purchased.
According to LoyaltyOne, 76% of customers feel the need of receiving personalized discount offers based on their previous records of purchase. According to Oracle, 56% of consumers prefer personalized offers for retail shopping.
In addition to this, the websites and the app of respective companies will make an algorithm based on their personal choices. 47% of consumers said they would love to avail real-time offers based on their browsing history.

Motivate Customers To Earn More Rewards and Coupons:

This is another cogent trick to make your customers stuck to your company. When the customers are encouraged to earn rewards, they usually get enticed to come back to you and buy more products to make those rewarding points useful.

Rewarding points will make your customers buy products superfluously.

1. According to a survey conducted in 2016, 66% of customers alters the amount they spend to earn more points. They buy and spend more than a non-loyalty member.
2. Enabling the facility of coupons is another option to attract more customers.
3. 55% of the customers use digital, as well as paper coupons.
4. Digitalization of coupons is advancement towards increase the crowd of customers, and here’s why:
5. 53% of the customers are inclined towards having digital coupons.
6. 63% of the customers have stated that they will increase their expenditure if the coupons are being digitalized.
7. 82% of customers trust on digital coupons and redeem the offer within a week.
8. 30% of the consumers apply the coupon in less than 24 hours.

Prime Membership:

The glut of benefits available after taking a prime membership entices the customers to spend more money on shopping. Different companies provide different benefits to the prime members. For instance, Amazon Prime membership wave off the delivery charge on certain items – obviously customers would feel the interest to buy products when shipping charges are levied. According to a study conducted in 2016, 50% of households in the USA are Amazon Prime members. An average prime member of the United States spends at least $2.5K at Amazon- which is five times higher than a non-prime member.

Membership Cards:

There are different types of membership cards, like bronze, silver, gold, platinum and so on. As the hierarchy of the card goes up, the consumers get more facilities and offers. Membership cards also help to earn rewards and special festival offers. Moreover, the membership cards helps to register the details like a birthday or anniversary of the consumers.
Special offers or discounts on such occasions will attract more customers. Moreover, a membership card is the easiest way to track the purchase history of a customer to give them personalized offers based on the track record. This is a good way to start a loyalty program.

Offers for Festival:

People buy a lot during festivals like Christmas, Thanks giving, Diwali, Christmas, New Year or Durga Puja. This is undoubtedly a fantastic & great time to attract more customers with enticing offers. It is always advisable to have a variant collection of products.
However, it is recommended and is of utmost importance to keep less variety of similar items. This leads to an “Analysis paralysis” – a customer becomes while buying choosing a product and they end up buying nothing at all.

Creating a Free App:

Creating a free app for mobiles is another good way to start a loyalty programme as well. According to vibes, 27% of consumers would prefer to adopt mobile wallet to make purchase and booking hotels and tickets with ease as is understandable in this age of digitization where smartphones have gone on to become a dire necessity for people of all ages, classes and groups. 61% of consumers subscribe to mobile messaging to get notifications about offers and discounts. In addition to this, 55% of consumers subscribe to secure loyalty rewards points.