Although you’ll find an increase in engagement from your customers after launching your B2B loyalty or rewards program, we’re never happy to walk away with “good enough” results.
Our 212F account manager teams are always striving to get the best for your brand out of the incentive programs we design – constantly trying to find new ways to push customer engagement options and loyalty program interactions further.
B2B reward offerings, when targeted to a person and their goals, are the starting block. Initially built from the demographics of your audience and a B2B loyalty program is often packed full options that are earned through the purchases or sales of your goods. The value of these rewards link to an understanding of the customer base and should emotionally connect with them on a personal level.
Buy = Rewards = Repeat Purchase!
Here’s where we let you in on a cool trick we’ve been using – “Reward Events”. As a program inclusion Reward Events are a fantastic way to put the merchandise as the focal point of the campaign and increase customer engagement.
The core idea is to create a sales-focused ‘holiday’ within your loyalty campaign (think Black Friday, but all about your company) with your program branding and rewards targeted to your customers. Things like tech gadgets, electronics, coffee machines, luxury goods, power tools, and kitchen appliances, but with vastly reduced point values (compared to the usual ‘point cost’ your program uses to “buy” the items).
Delivering a targeted communications campaign around these themed reward days is useful to build hype for the single-day event, but also serves a secondary purpose of providing additional customer touchpoints with your target audience, and gently prompts them as a reminder for the program itself.
Circulating “teasers” of reward items and savings in the lead-up creates further excitement. These messages can be shared across the channels your company uses to talk with its customers and goes beyond the impact of your general day-to-day program communications.
The benefits don’t end there, either. Your teaser campaign will also provide the internal sales team an opportunity to have further contact with their customers by using the reward event as a sales tool. The sales team can use the event as a reason to contact customers and promote it, as well as ensure the customer has enough points (however they’re earned) to get the most from the upcoming day. These touchpoints are fantastic ways to build engagement between your brand and the customers, and another way to ensure that your product is front-of-mind for any clients who may need to restock.
It’s important to note that these reward days aren’t just “set-and-forget” with certainty to succeed. You need to ensure that you offer the right mix of rewards within a program event. Both high-end aspirational rewards and budget-conscious options should be available in an event’s merchandise rewards mix, as this will allow more customers to participate and engage with the promotion.
We have historically seen significant increases in engagement with reward events that provide a limited range of highly desirable products at discounted price points. Whatever mix you use and “pricing” you follow, it’s essential that you provide a reward selection that will create trophy value – if the product is desirable to the audience and obtainable at a great rate, this provides a talking point and is a great opportunity to create lasting brand advocates.
It is also integral, as with the basics of designing your loyalty program, that you cover the demographics of the program participants. If you’re providing great value items and they don’t resonate with your audience, why would they bother to participate? If you’re concerned about this, our Engagement Loyalty Model is a fantastic way to nail down the personas of your audience and raise your confidence in the program’s deliverables.
The day is finally here, and your themed rewards are ripe for the picking. What now? Assuming you’ve promoted the event correctly (something that we can help with), your event day should have a huge impact on engagement.
Some of the results we have seen exceed normal KPI metrics on days like this are;
Another key metric to keep an eye out for is inactive customers returning and redeeming rewards during the event. Engagement from customers who have fallen off in the past can always be considered a win and should absolutely vouch for the success of your themed reward day. Reactivating this group encourages them to engage further with the program and company in the future.
As we’ve seen from managing event days for programs in both Australia and New Zealand, these events can be executed with minimal work across both markets and potentially serve a huge boost in customer engagement. The communications strategy and event day can be aligned across the regions, with the biggest localisation typically being around the types of rewards that are available to each cohort.
What we love about the “Reward Event” day is the same thing that your customers will love – they can become a regular feature of the program calendar. Provided you have a strong offer behind the event, the hype in your customer base will begin to drive itself (but that doesn’t mean leaving it alone!). We’ve noticed that customers sometimes increase their purchases in the lead-up to build more points for the big day. Finally, when the event rolls around, they hope to be amongst the lucky participants that snap up that fantastic deal they’ve been dreaming of!
So, we have to ask – have you considered a “Black Friday” style event for your business or program? If not, today might be the day. Reach out today and find out why we’ve been the leading agency for loyalty and reward programs Australia and New Zealand-wide since 1996.
