There are many customers stories of merchants who after moving to Beans from traditional loyalty software and have witnessed a 5x increase in rewards program usage, they’re not always sure what it is that drives these results. Here’s how it works.
First, some context
Before I reveal the secret, let’s consider your typical customer’s inbox. The average person gets about 88 emails each day, many of which are marketing emails coming from companies she doesn’t even remember. Because nobody has time to read that many emails, she regularly plays the inbox version of kiss, kill, marry OR ignore, unsubscribe, read. This is the precarious world of email marketing — fail to add enough value and your customer might cut the cord and say goodbye forever.
Traditional loyalty software hides from this challenge
Most old loyalty software just avoids this challenge altogether. They send customers a loyalty program welcome email when they’ve joined the rewards program, and after each time the customer uses its points. The problem is that this is just telling people what they already know. There’s no value.
They don’t encourage anyone to continually use the program. There’s no activation. No engagement. The best-case scenario for the retailer is that they end up with a rewards program that captures their already loyal hardcore.
So how does Beans get 5x usage?
One of the main reasons Beans retailers get more usage on their rewards programs compared to traditional loyalty software is that we regularly notify your users about their credit. We now send millions of emails each week that communicate enough value to your customers, often enough to be permitted to stay in their inbox. Most importantly, people open and click these emails — we have a send-to-click rate of over 700% of the e-commerce average.
Yes, but how?
OK, so in more detail: we’ve built a smart notification system based on the following vital things that we’ve realized thus far in the journey.
People forget you quickly: They are bombarded with marketing material — emails left, right and center. Naturally, if we don’t regularly remind them, they won’t always remember to come back. The balance reminder is vital in keeping your store at the front of their mind.
But there’s a right way to remind them: It’s obviously more complicated than just sending an email. What we realized is that to stand out from the crowd, we needed to take a customized approach. This is why when they sign up to your rewards program, customers have the power to decide how often they want to receive notifications. Because they hear from us as often as they’ve decided they want to, customers click on our emails more often, leading them to your store more often.
And there’s a right way to communicate: Of course what’s in the mail also plays a major role. What we found was that old rewards software frustrates customers by sending them emails that leave more questions than answers: Questions about how much the points are worth, about how the rewards system works and about how to redeem the points. We designed our emails to leave customers with only one question in mind after reading: “what am I going to spend my credit on?”
Beans sends notifications that leave customers thinking about what they’re going to spend their money on.
We’re not ‘there’ yet
Modern eCommerce is complex, and that’s why we’re creating a modern platform to help you retain, engage and acquire customers. This is on the principle that the purpose of rewarding clients, aside from saying thank you, is to activate them and grow your business. There’s still a way to go, but we’re up for the challenge.
Thanks for reading. Follow us to hear about more of our discoveries and musings on customer retention, engagement, and acquisition. Sidenote: If traditional loyalty software sounds a little too familiar, maybe it’s time for a better rewards program?
