Almost every eCommerce expert swears by the fact that you will make more revenue out of your existing customers than from new shoppers. Brands that have set up loyalty marketing activities and enriched customers’ experience have been able to successfully increase the lifetime value of their customers and make them loyal shoppers.
We want to help you retain your existing customers better, build a positive relationship with them, and bring in repeat purchases. Here are 16 tried-and-tested loyalty marketing strategies to help you boost customer loyalty.
16 Loyalty Marketing Strategies to Build a Positive Relationship with Customers
1. Set up a customer account that shoppers want to use
To retain customers better, you have to set up a better on-site experience that shoppers would want to come back to. One way to do this with your customer account page. This is a place where shoppers can find their personal details, like past orders, order tracking links, etc. While shoppers do frequent this page to find important details, they aren’t eager to stay and spend time on it.
However, by upgrading the features available on this customer account page, you can get customers to spend more time on it, help them save products they want, and increase repeat purchases.
Using Flits, you can redesign your customer account page and add features like wishlisting and rewards. Guaranteed to make shoppers stay longer on your store.
Learn more about how you can personalize your customer account page and boost sales.
2. Set up a winning rewards program
More brands are setting up rewards programs in an attempt to reel in new shoppers from their initial visit. These rewards programs incentivize shoppers, letting them earn rewards for registering, placing an order, leaving a review, etc. This gamified experience ensures that your shoppers come back to your store voluntarily.
Also read: Store Credits: The One Hack To Bring Back BFCM Customers for Repeat Purchases
You can set up this rewards program with Flits. The Shopify app lets you set up a credit system and set rules for which activities earn rewards and how much. A credit system helps shoppers see exactly how much real currency they’ve earned, unlike a point system which is vague and complex for shoppers to understand.
Set up a rewards program with Flits and set up loyalty marketing that converts!
3. Set up tiered rewards
With different types of rewards programs available, how do you know which kind of rewards program to set up on your Shopify store? Many brands like Sephora have been able to make their rewards programs even more addictive with a gamified aspect to it.
These rewards programs are tiered, meaning that shoppers are ranked into certain groups based on how many credits they have, how much they’ve spent, etc. The higher the tier that the shopper is in, the more benefits they get. Due to this, shoppers feel motivated to engage with the Shopify store so that they can unlock a higher tier.
You can set up a tiered rewards program by using Flits. By working with our team of Shopify experts, you can set up a tiered rewards program on your Shopify store’s customer account page and create this gamified experience for your shoppers.
See how The Man Company enables a tiered reward program for its shoppers.
4. Automated and relevant communication about rewards
Besides setting up a rewards program, you also need to continuously communicate to your shoppers about their rewards.
Within Flits, you can set up personalized messages to be sent via email and web push notifications to your shoppers. You can set up messages to be sent every time shoppers earn rewards, redeem them, and when their rewards are about to expire.
When crafting these rewards communications, ensure that you’ve mentioned the number of credits available or used and use a CTA to get shoppers back to your Shopify store.
5. Collect customer feedback and use it to improve your store
Customer feedback can help you understand your customers’ needs, expectations, and pains, and use this insight to improve your store experience.
There are 3 benefits to collecting feedback:
- It helps you identify what’s working and push those features and messaging to new shoppers.
- It lets you identify demoters, problem areas that you need to improve, and ensures they aren’t negatively impacting sales.
- It shows customers that you care about them, making them more likely to stick with you for the long haul.
You can collect feedback with a customer feedback tool like Qrite. The tool that lets you measure customer satisfaction, find problems, and optimize your store.
6. Personalized recommendations
While scrolling through an online store, you’re more likely to continue browsing if the products are relevant to your interests. Otherwise, you end up dropping off entirely.
In fact, 71% of consumers feel frustrated when their shopping experience is impersonal.
You can provide a personalized experience on-site by displaying personalized recommendations. Use Wiser to display AI-powered personalized recommendations across your Shopify store. This can help you lower drop-offs, increase AOV, and keep your customers satisfied.
Here are 3 strategies for your recommendations:
- Display ‘Related Items’ or ‘Recently Viewed Items’ on your product page.
- Display ‘Frequently Bought Together’ on your cart page to increase AOV.
- Trigger an ‘Inspired By Your Browsing History’ pop-up at exit intent.
7. Customer-first with wishlisting
Shoppers commonly browse through a bunch of products and find a few interesting but don’t end up buying all the items that caught their eye. You must help your customers easily find the products they did like by enabling wishlisting.
Wishlisting lets shoppers save items that caught their eye and later purchase them. By being able to save these items, your shoppers can come back and buy them instantly without having to browse your entire catalog to find the item.
You can set up wishlisting with Flits. Shoppers can save items with the click of a button (a heart icon). They can later view all the items they saved on their customer account page and directly add the item to their cart.
Allow wishlisting with Flits to enable repeat purchases.
8. Turn them into brand advocates with referral marketing
You have to give your shoppers a reason to recommend your store to others. Customers referred by a friend are four times more likely to buy. Moreover, referred customers have a 37% higher customer retention rate.
Referral marketing lets you reward your existing customers when they refer new shoppers and successfully get these referred shoppers to sign up and order from your Shopify store. It helps you achieve two positive outcomes:
- Activate your customers to bring in new shoppers who would be more inclined to buy and turn into loyal shoppers.
- Engage your existing customers and let them earn rewards.
You don’t need to be an expert to set up a referral marketing strategy. You can set it up through Flits. The app lets you add a referrals page to your customer account page where shoppers can share their referral code, see who they’ve referred, and how many rewards they’ve earned.
9. Easy recall with browsing history
Ever wanted to go back to a product that you looked at in the past? Your browsing history can help you find products you looked at easily, without having to browse the entire catalog to find it. Despite being a small feature, displaying your customer’s browsing history within their customer account page can contribute to providing a simpler shopping experience.
You can display Browsing History on the Shopify customer account page with Flits. Shoppers can see all the items they looked at and even add an item directly to their cart.
10. Simplified repurchases
Oftentimes, especially with brands that sell beauty and food, shoppers need to reorder the product they previously purchased. Usually, to reorder a past item, shoppers need to click on the item they bought and open its product page before they can add it to their cart.
Simplify reordering by letting shoppers see the products they bought on the ‘Orders’ page and add the item directly to their cart. This cuts short the time it takes for shoppers to reorder and removes any friction they would usually face.
Simplifying your shopping experience can go a long way in keeping customers satisfied and making them fans of your brand.
11. Order tracking pages to keep post-purchase anxiety at bay
Your work isn’t done after your customer places an order. The experience you provide post-purchase plays a huge role in the repeat purchases you will capture from these customers in the future.
Ensure that your customers have a positive experience by letting them know exactly where their product is at all times. Send shoppers a tracking link that lets them see the status of their order in real-time. You can enable order tracking and set up a better delivery experience with Clickpost. The logistics solution helps you pick the right delivery partner, manage order creation and delivery plans, and track orders in real-time.
Simplifying delivery for you and optimizing the post-purchase experience for your customers!
12. Make it easy to request returns and exchanges
Ever requested a return and exchange from an online store? How did the experience affect your future interactions with the store?
Even with a negative experience with your product, an easy return process is sure to make customers give your Shopify store another chance. You have to ensure that shoppers can easily figure out how to raise a return or exchange request and set up straightforward protocols for this.
Here are 3 best practices to handle your return and exchange requests better:
- Set up a ‘Return Policy’ page that is easy to read, explaining how customers can raise these requests, how long they are eligible for returns, and how their payment will be credited back to them.
- Set up a live chat on your Shopify store and automate a conversation sequence for return requests.
- Look into your data (through an analytics app like RevTap) to understand the reasons behind returns and optimize these issues.
13. Start a subscription program
If you sell products that need to be bought on a recurring basis, a subscription program might be perfect for you. With a subscription program, shoppers can choose to subscribe to a product, buying a discounted price for a period of 6 to 12 months. Shoppers can choose how often they want to receive the item. This strategy helps you capture recurring revenue and makes it easier for your shoppers to continue buying your products.
A subscription program is one of the best ways to subtly retain customers and build loyalty towards your products.
You can set up subscriptions on your Shopify store with Recharge.
14. Build a community on social
Many brands build a community out of their customer base, creating value for these shoppers and making them feel special. By creating this sense of community, especially in platforms where shoppers frequent, you can keep customers engaged, increasing brand recognition, and boosting loyalty.
For instance, one brand, Gym+Coffee has created a Facebook group to let their customers share how they use their products, their fitness journey, and even ask questions about the product.
Building a community on social media is easy. Here are 4 tips to get started:
- Figure out what value you want to provide that is close to what your products and your brand stand for. For instance, if you are an activewear brand, you can choose to create workout videos on YouTube or set up a fitness community on Reddit.
- Next, find the platform you want to choose, whether it’s a Facebook group, subreddit, Youtube, etc.
- Invite your existing customers to join the community, rewarding them with a discount or credits for joining.
- Continuously engage them with posts and encourage them to share their own stories. For instance, for your activewear brand, if you run a YouTube channel, you can get a customer to share their workout. Or, if you run a subreddit, your customers can ask questions.
15. Sync online and offline purchases
If you have a retail store, it’s crucial to provide an integrated sales experience so that shoppers who buy from both your retail store and your eCommerce store can enjoy the rewards from the same account. This includes providing an integrated experience by allowing shoppers to buy online and pick up from your store.
One loyalty marketing tactic when selling across multiple channels is by setting up your rewards program for even offline shoppers. Flits integrates with Shopify POS, allowing you to assign rewards for orders placed within your retail store.
16. Conversational cart recovery with human automated text messages
Conversational marketing tailored to each shopper can help you boost loyalty among them. This conversational approach can be especially helpful when recovering your abandoned carts. Human automation allows you to set up live agents behind your marketing messages, like SMS so that shoppers can reply to your messages with questions and get instant replies.
Abandoned cart text marketing that taps into conversation marketing, has 98% open rates, 45% reply rates, and 33% conversion rates.
You can set up human-powered cart recovery SMS campaigns with TxtCart. The Shopify app sends an abandoned cart SMS to your shoppers, reminding them about the items they left behind. Shoppers can speak to live agents and ask questions, from discounts available to the time it takes to ship their order. These live agents will respond to your shoppers in real-time, understanding their motivations, and tailoring an offer to them to convert shoppers successfully.
Do you really need to focus on loyalty?
For every Shopify store, your sales determine your success as a business. So, you may be wondering, how can focusing on customer loyalty improve sales and conversions on your Shopify store?
With higher brand loyalty, your customers would continue to shop from you, whenever they plan to buy products similar to what you sell. But, don’t just listen to us, here are some solid statistics that can help you understand the importance of customer loyalty:
- 43% of people spend more money on brands they’re loyal to.
- 80% of your future profits will come from just 20% of your existing customers.
- Loyal customers spend 67% more than new ones.
- US e-commerce sites make 40% in sales from 8% of loyal visitors.
There’s no doubt about it— loyalty is key to growing sales, helping you retain customers for the long-term, and increasing the lifetime value of your shoppers.
Set up loyalty marketing strategies to boost conversions on your Shopify store
As you can see, customer loyalty is a crucial part of your Shopify store’s success. We hope this extensive guide to loyalty marketing strategies helps you build a better relationship with your customers and increases Shopify sales.
Flits is a Shopify app built to help you enhance customer experience and increase loyalty among them. With the app, you can improve your customer account page, set up a rewards program, enable referrals, allow wishlisting, let shoppers reorder with one click, and show browsing history.
