Customer Loyalty and marketing automation are a winning combination for building loyalty by personalizing each customer’s customer journey to the fullest.
“Businesses need to shift their focus from short-term transaction-focused goals to building long-term relationships with customers,” writes Philip Kotler, summing up in these few words what is the real key to success for a business: turning the occasional consumer into first a frequent buyer and then a loyal customer.
Sweepstakes, points cards, loyalty programs: too often customer loyalty is reduced to the sole objective of stimulating recurring purchases, forgetting how instead it manages to make a difference the very moment a relationship of trust is established between brand and consumer such that the latter becomes a true supporter and, in addition to the product, espouses its values and principles.
It quickly becomes apparent that if a second purchase can be stimulated even with a simple promotional campaign, the same cannot be said for customer loyalty, which cannot be improvised. What levers, then, can we act on for an effective loyalty strategy?
User profiling and segmentation: the first step to a winning strategy
A loyal customer, we know, tends to buy more frequently and spend more on average than an occasional customer and, no less importantly, is more likely to share their positive experience with others. But how to identify loyal customers and more importantly, how to accompany them on a comprehensive loyalty journey?
The first step is undoubtedly to get to know your customer base thoroughly: characteristics, interests, purchasing behavior, and stage of the customer journey are key pieces of information that help us accompany our users on a loyalty journey, providing them with personalized and valuable experiences at every stage.
In this context, the use of a Customer Data Platform such as Blendee can really make a difference: while it allows us to collect user data from multiple channels and normalize it at the single customer view level, it also enables us to streamline activities aimed at creating personalized customer experiences.
Customer retention VS customer loyalty: when customer experience can make a difference
We often tend to use the terms “customer retention” and “customer loyalty” as synonyms in fact, perhaps, they are not really, and their very etymology, can help us: with the term “customer retention” we basically refer to a brand’s ability to retain customers by stimulating recurring purchases, but such purchases can also occur out of cost-effectiveness compared to competitors, a convenience that may, however, run out so much that even the “most loyal” customers then choose to buy their products elsewhere.
The concept of “customer loyalty,” on the other hand, goes far beyond the mere transaction, or at least does not end with it: brand loyalty, in addition to being proven by repeated purchases and confirmation in product choice, is realized through a sharing of values, through the creation of a real relationship.
It becomes immediately apparent how the customer experience plays, in this case, a decisive aspect: regardless of the quality of the product, which still remains a fundamental aspect of customer loyalty, the personalization of communications, offers, pre- and post-purchase services, and interactions at the point of sale become crucial factors.
The customer feels understood, valued, and this is the real winning weapon to challenge the competition.
Customized loyalty programs: how to do it?
From the best-known point collection programs to all-inclusive loyalty programs that allow a brand’s customers to take advantage of services from partner companies-there are many different types of loyalty programs, and for each of them a marketing automation strategy can represent significant added value.
Empathizing with your customer already after the first purchase is essential to establish a relationship and create engagement: but how many loyalty programs we have joined are truly personalized?
It is certainly important to create programs that reward purchases-imagine the points we accumulate and with which we access discounts and promotions-but it is even more important to take into account the brand-consumer interactions that are created across different touchpoints, physical and digital.
- Identify your hero customers (those who buy more, more often and are highly engaged) and reward them with exclusive services such as private sales, invitations to special events.
- Engage a new user and invite them to release data and information to receive personalized offers and promotions.
- Personalize the browsing experience of a newly registered user in order to accompany them to make their first purchase.
- Send a cart retrieval email to a user who has chosen not to end their purchase by offering customized products in a cross-selling perspective.
- Create customized campaigns for users who have already interacted with your brand on different touchpoints.
- Arouse a user’s interest by sending emails containing the products displayed and enriched with personalized product recommendations
- Recognize giveaways and rewards to customers who recommend the brand to a friend
The above are just a few examples of activities that can be implemented with the help of marketing automation and that help the brand create an experience of familiarity and empathy with the consumer, which are essential to automatically trigger reward mechanics that are effective because they are perceived by the consumer as being “tailor-made.”
Marketing Automation and Customer Loyalty: the customer at the center of your strategy
61% of customers said the best way a brand can interact with them is by surprising them with gifts and giveaways, just by being a customer. (Source: Loyalty Barometer Report, 2019).
But if customer loyalty is the best way for a company to get to know its customers better, optimize its acquisition costs and grow in branding and revenue through word-of-mouth marketing, it is important for it to equip itself with technological solutions that enable it to deploy effective customer-centric marketing strategies.
Here, then, a marketing automation and web personalization platform such as Blendee may be the best solution for:
- Collect and normalize at the single customer view level all data collected from multiple sources for each individual user and customer
- analyze, profile and segment its customer base in ways that range from master data to historicized and real-time purchasing and browsing behaviors, to intercepted interests and needs.
- personalize the browsing and purchasing experience of each individual user with tailored communications and offers created and conveyed at the most appropriate time and in the most appropriate channel, fully automatically.
