Learn practical strategies to boost your customer loyalty program sign-ups
If you were to analyze your Shopify store’s revenue segments right now, chances are you’ll find that most of your revenue – more than 65% – comes from your existing customers.
This means it’s critical to focus on customer retention for your business.
And that brings us to loyalty programs—one of the most effective strategies to keep your customers buying from you.
However, getting customers to sign up for loyalty programs is not easy—unless customers see value in your loyalty program.
So what are the gaps you need to fill? And how?
This is where the customer loyalty program sign-up page comes into play.
In this article, we focus on how to optimize your customer account loyalty page for more sign-ups.
What is a customer loyalty program page?
A customer loyalty program sign-up page is the starting point for your customers to join your program. It’s a sign-up or joining page.
However, unlike your Shopify store customer account sign-up page, a loyalty program sign-up page is quite different.
The page can have many elements and a lot more information for customers. For example, here’s Sephora’s loyalty program sign-up page.
The page not only has ‘Join Now’ and ‘Sign In’ buttons but also gives a lowdown of all the benefits the program offers. Customers get a sense of how much they can save, the free samples and perks they receive, and the kind of experiences the community offers.
There are many more elements that you can include in your sign up. Let’s explore them.
Key elements of a good customer loyalty program page for more sign-ups
While you can always follow through a strategy unique to yours or test different ones out, here are some things we recommend following to get more sign-ups from your customer loyalty program page:
Create a separate page
One of the first things you should do is have a dedicated page for your customer loyalty program. Unfortunately, many eCommerce brands tend to combine the loyalty program information on other generic pages. But this way, your loyalty program can get lost and won’t get noticed by customers.
Instead, have an independent space for your customer loyalty program—a separate page.
But what should you have on this page? To answer this question, you must think like your target audience. What are some of the questions that your customers would have about your loyalty program?
They might want to know what your program has to offer them. Or how they will earn points and how they can use the points. They will have questions that help them find value in your program.
Unless there’s any value in your loyalty program for them, customers will treat it like just another loyalty program and might not be interested in joining.
Besides, this dedicated page should tell customers how to join and use the points, etc.
Here’s an example from The Man Company’s dedicated loyalty program – The Man Club
Make sign-up easy
People like things to be simple. And your customer loyalty program sign-up is no different—a long and complex sign-up process can put off customers.
Here are some tips for an easy sign-up process:
- Enable social login to make sign-up easier and faster
- Make the call-to-action button prominent
- Include the bare minimum; avoid extra elements
- Mention an incentive you’re offering somewhere close to the sign up
- Do A/B testing with pop-up sign-up forms
- Include the loyalty program tab in the customer account
Once customers login into the loyalty program page, they have an overview of their rewards, etc.
In general, this page should include the following:
- Explain the basics of the loyalty program
- A link to the explainer video
- Points collected by customers
- How many more points are needed to access a benefit
- Points used or available for use
- Ways in which the points can be used
- Points about to expire
Highlight your value proposition
A study by McKinsey & Co. reveals that when customers sign up for loyalty programs or memberships, 62% of new subscribers are attracted to good perceived value – the right combination of offerings and pricing.
Most eCommerce brands have some loyalty or rewards program. So, what is it that makes your loyalty program stand out?
For example, what is the standard value proposition of loyalty programs?
- It is free to join
- Has a small fee and more benefits
- Offers lots of benefits
- Offers non-transactional benefits
- Provides a community experience to customers
- Offers multiple opportunities to earn loyalty points
- Makes it easy to use the points earned
A critical factor is to differentiate your offerings and your value proposition. But for that, you have to do the following:
- Identify your unique value proposition before you start promoting your loyalty program
- Understand your target customers and their needs
- Make your value proposition clear and loud
Here’s an example of Swarovski’s loyalty program and its benefits:
Explain how the loyalty program works
Another important factor on your customer loyalty sign up page is to explain the ‘how’ of your loyalty program.
Customers should know how the program works, how they can earn points, how to use points, etc.
For example, to encourage customers to spend more on your store, you can offer incentives—avail 10% off after earning 100 loyalty points.
Similarly, you must ensure your customers know about whatever incentives you set up in your loyalty program.
One way to make it more effective is to have an explainer video on the customer loyalty page. Or, you could have an illustration explaining the same in a visual format.
Whatever format you choose to explain, make sure you keep the explanation simple, crisp, and transparent.
Mention clauses and conditions
Trust is one of the most important aspects of building long-term customer relationships. To build trust, it’s a must for brands to maintain transparency.
Being an eCommerce business, you might not have any physical connection with your customers. This makes transparency all the more important.
Here’s what you can do:
- Mention all the clauses and conditions clearly
- Make it easy for customers to understand how the program works
- Mention loyalty program fee information clearly
- Explain how to earn and use rewards clearly
- If you have a tier-based program, explain the benefits of each clearly
- Let customers know what rewards aren’t applicable on
Explain the offline and online functioning
Suppose you have an offline presence along with your online store. In this case, you could run your loyalty program in both places.
But, explain the details to customers. See to it that it’s easy to understand for customers. For example, if certain rewards can be earned only offline or online, ensure these conditions are clear to them.
Since offline benefits are location-based, customers should know where to avail of them. Your customer loyalty program page is the best place to have all this information.
Give a breakdown of rewards
An average person is part of 15 loyalty programs. But what is it that motivates them to join?
One of the first reasons why customers join loyalty programs is loyalty rewards. Customers want to benefit financially by joining loyalty programs. And they expect brands to give them many ways to earn points.
A points program is the best way to do this. But, for customers to maximize their participation, they must know how to earn more points.
For example, if you have a gamified loyalty program, your customers should know how it works.
Here’s an example:
Share customer testimonials
One of the best proofs to show the value of your loyalty program are your existing customers who like your program.
We, humans, tend to follow other people. So, when people see your customers sharing positive reviews of your loyalty program, they feel more confident and motivated to join it.
And this is one way to optimize your customer loyalty program page.
This is where customer testimonials come into the picture.
Do this:
- Collect testimonials from the existing customers who’ve signed up for the loyalty program
- Ask them to talk about the benefits they enjoy
- Tell them to explain how your program added value to them
- Run contests around your loyalty program and display what the winning customers’ won
- Set up gamification within your loyalty program. It has actions-and-rewards elements
- Ask customers to talk about how easily they earned loyalty points on your Shopify loyalty program
- Ask them direct questions such as ‘why is yours the best loyalty program’
Show user-generated content
Your brand’s best ambassadors are your happy customers. And social media is one of the best places to spot these loyal customers.
Once you find content posted by your loyal, happy customers, you can share it on different platforms, including your loyalty program sign up page. How does this help?
- Sharing user-generated content helps maximize brand reach
- It puts your customers at the front of your brand—adds a human touch to your marketing
- People trust real people—you can increase sign-ups as customers gain more trust in your brand
- It’s a cost-effective way to market your customer loyalty program
Do this:
- Encourage customers to share posts and reviews about your loyalty program on social media
- Reshare those social posts on your social media accounts and your loyalty program page
- Display those social posts on your website
- Share this user-generated content in newsletters and email campaigns
Mention causes you support
Another way to increase your loyalty program sign-ups is to enable customers to support causes via your program.
This is how it works: the rewards you offer customers can be donated to a cause they’d like to support.
For example, The Body Shop’s Love Your Body Club does this: Their loyalty program enables customers to donate their rewards to one of the four charities with which the program is tied. The charities range from causes such as domestic abuse issues, emergency aid, sustainability, and wildlife conservation.
Here’s the loyalty program page example of The Body Shop:
Customer loyalty program page examples for more sign-ups
There are a number of brands that are doing a fantastic job with their loyalty programs. But here are some of our customer loyalty program page examples you can look into for examples:
1. Tarte cosmetics
Tarte cosmetics provides multiple ways for customers to earn rewards. It works well because the brand has created a variety of rewards under each tier by avoiding repetition or overlap of rewards.
2. Samsung
Samsung’s Smart Club customer loyalty program sign-up page clearly explains how customers can join, followed by how they can accelerate and jump to high tiers in the program. In addition, the page has a FAQ section that answers customer-centric questions.
3. DSW VIP
The footwear brand DSW’s loyalty program sign-up page is packed with information so customers can understand every detail. The program also has a shoe donation drive clubbed with the program.
How will you optimize your customer loyalty program sign up page?
Even though you have an excellent customer loyalty program, you might need help to get sign-ups unless you get your sign-up page on point.
Your customer loyalty program page can make or break the sign up rate and customer participation.
Don’t have a loyalty program on your Shopify store? Don’t fret; you can set it up easily and quickly with the help of Flits.
Ecommerce brands that use Flits can also integrate the loyalty program into the customer account page, increasing participation. And you can do it too.
