3 Easy Steps for Building Customer Loyalty

Any strong small business will have loyal customers that return for additional sales. You put a lot of work into getting leads to convert, so you’ll want to make the most of your efforts by keeping those converts around. Increasing your repeat business will also increase your initial ROI and ROE (return on effort) put towards leads, dropping your CPA (cost per acquisition) and increasing your sales.

Establishing a Loyalty Program

What incentivizes your customers to return? There should be special deals or rewards that your business offers to get your customers back in the door. A loyalty program may use a points system that adds up to offer free items or discounts over time. Bigger customers should get better deals, encouraging customers to purchase more and frequently from your company.

Making the Most of Your Program

Not only will your program increase the likelihood of return visits from customers, but if it is established correctly, it can increase the data you collect about your audience. Use the opportunity to sign customers up with email or text to receive future contact from your brand. You can send out reminders, valuable information and brand announcements through your loyalty program contact list. Just make sure you send out your confirmation contact within 24 hours so your audience doesn’t forget what they signed up for. Require a double opt-in so that you can ensure your audience is truly interested in the contact. Then, make sure your opt-out is easy to find and a one-click step at the bottom of every email. You do not want to annoy uninterested recipients because this will devalue your brand and may get your emails marked as “spam.”

Showing Your Value

Your loyalty program should be valuable to your audience so that they are eager to sign up. Likewise, all of your content should be focused on the audience and not on your brand. Emails or texts should offer support or interesting content that your audience will appreciate. If your contact turns into self-serving brand promotions, your audience will quickly lose interest and see your contact as spam or junk mail.