2 Loyalty Program Ideas Any Offline Business Can Do on the Internet

Dec 20, 2018 • 3 min read

 

Words travel fast, even faster on the internet. According to the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association, the total of internet users in the country has grown to over 143 millions in 2017. This means any business has the potential to reach more than 54% of Indonesian population on the internet.

So why not bring your loyalty program online?

The loyalty program itself should encourage your customers not only to keep coming back to you, but also become your advocates for free. Of course, this can only happen if you also bring your customers to a high satisfaction level towards your products and services.

“Bring your friend and get 10% off on all items” is likely the most notorious customer loyalty reward scheme out there. Here, we are going to take it online and extend the list of potential friends your customers can bring to your business – probably a gazillion times longer. Try these 3 ideas:

Online Loyalty Program #1 – Instagram Contest

About 60% of Instagram users worldwide fall into the age group of 18 – 34. If your target market matches this age group, Instagram can be the best social media to promote your business. Especially, there are at least 1 billion active Instagram accounts in Indonesia, according to Kompas.com in June 2018.

Depending on your type of products or services, you can create contests on Instagram that revolve around your offers. Get your customers to upload the best photo they can take of your product or service.

You can determine the winner by how many likes or comments your customers can get on the photo. The more engagement the photo gets, the more often it will appear in your customers’ news feed, meaning, higher exposure to your business!

Reward the winner with free products or services of your business. If your budget allows, you can also give some merchandise or whatnot. But remember, make sure your reward is aligned with your branding. A travel company should not reward the contest winner with, say, a washing machine. Instead, reward with free flight tickets or hotel vouchers to be more consistent with your branding.

Online Loyalty Program #2 – Online Review Response

There are many online platforms that allow customers to publicly review businesses, ranging from TripAdvisor, Zomato, Facebook Pages to Google Business Reviews. These sites and applications could be somewhat a motivator that “force” you not to let your customers unhappy - ever.

Most of them don’t allow business owners to erase or edit any public review. So once you get a review, the many potential new customers on the internet would also read it. Make sure you find time to response to any review you get online, ASAP, be it a bad one or good.

While some of these platforms strictly forbid offering incentives in exchange with reviews, the others don’t. Make sure of the guidelines each platform enrules.

You can encourage customers to leave you online reviews and offer a gesture of appreciation by giving discounts or else. Emphasize that it’s your way to appreciate, not an incentive. And make sure your customers are aware that they can be 100% honest in the review. Be prepared to handle bad testimonies professionally. Take them as lessons to learn.

Turning your customers into your business advocates is crucial. Great customer service is not enough to keep them loyal nowadays. You have to step up your game. Make your brand known by as many people as possible.

Use the internet. It’s there. And it’s most certainly cheaper than hiring a famous celebrity to be your brand ambassador.

Got any other ideas on the online loyalty program? Share with us to info@usetada.com and get a free one hour online consultation for your customer advocacy solution.!