For eCommerce businesses, retention means more consistent sales, and more often than not, a customer loyalty program means improved retention. Selling to your existing customer is significantly easier and a lot more cost-efficient than hunting out new customers and venturing into unknown waters to look for newer audiences.
Based on statistics, there is a 60-70% chance of selling to your existing customers and only a 5-20% probability of selling to a newer customer. This is why working to create brand loyalty is crucial for eCommerce businesses.
In this lesson, you will learn how WhatsApp Business can be used to boost customer loyalty.
What is Customer Loyalty and Why is it Important?
Customer loyalty is the ongoing relationship between you and the customer that measures your customer’s likeliness to repeat purchases from you. Statistics have found that a 5% increase in customer retention can result in a boost in profits ranging anywhere from 25% to 95%, depending on the effectiveness of retention strategies.
– But here’s why customer loyalty needs to be important to you:
– It increases the possibility of word-of-mouth marketing opportunities.
– Garnering customer loyalty can be comparatively more cost-effective than customer acquisition.
– Improves customer retention rate.
– Repeat customers are more likely to spend more than first-time store visitors.
– Better customer satisfaction, leading to a lighter load on support and customer service teams.
How to Use WhatsApp to Boost Loyalty?
Segment Your Customers and Personalize Broadcasts:
Reaching out to your customers with random promotions isn’t going to do much good. There is no way your promotion might be relevant to them, and this can even put them off.
You need to reach out to the right customer with the right promotion. For this, segment your customers and send out promotions on WhatsApp, that are appropriate to that segment, without forsaking relevance.
Personalize your WhatsApp broadcasts, basing them on the customer’s past interactions, browsing behavior, and purchase history. A great way of doing this is to employ the help of dependable WhatsApp marketing solution providers like Interakt which is able to provide in-depth data on your customers and opt-ins to enable personalization.
Introduce Recent Customers to your Loyalty Program:
Alert people about your loyalty program and its existence, so that it can reach the audiences and start working towards strengthening your base of brand-loyal customers. Send out WhatsApp messages informing about your loyalty programs to those customers that have purchased multiple times (two or more) from you. To be compelling, clearly lay out the rewards and benefits of joining the program. Here are a few examples of loyalty program invitations that you could use.
“Hey, Nick! Join our Elite Club of happy customers for exclusive products, special prices, and a lot more irresistible goodness! Sign up right away!”
“Hello there! Loving our products? Join our Loyalty Program to gain access to insider info on all the latest additions. And bag your favorites for special prices! Don’t Wait too long. Sign up!”
“Hi, Raj! We believe that you loved our products. Want more of the same quality, but with deliciously special prices? Sign up to our Loyalty Rewards Club!”
Follow Up on the Loyalty Program Messages.
Messages that alert customers about your loyalty program should also have compelling follow-up messages too. This is where you drive home the whole point of how good your loyalty program is.
Here, reiterate the benefits and rewards that your loyalty program provides if needed.
The main objective of the follow-up should be to provide an easy way for customers to sign up for the program. This can be done with a clever CTA, a prompt to simply send “Yes” to sign up for the program, or a button or link to take them to the sign-up page of the loyalty program.
The good thing is that you can automate this follow-up using the WhatsApp Business API with a solution provider like Interakt.
Provide Social Proof:
Social proof has always been effective in driving sales and penetrating different customer segments. The power of such proof can also be utilized for growing the perfect loyalty program too. When joining a brand’s loyalty program that they are new to, proof becomes very important in convincing them of the value being provided.
Using WhatsApp, share testimonials, and reviews from the people who have signed up for your loyalty program and have benefited from it. This could act as the nudge needed for newer customers to sign up for the loyalty program.
Ask for Feedback:
Ask your customers for feedback often and while doing so, subtly plug your loyalty program along with it. Feedbacks are an excellent way to convey that you care for your customers. Leverage this positive element to get them to sign up for the loyalty program.
Feedback related specifically to your brand loyalty program needs to be in focus as well. Ask customers what they expect from the loyalty program if the program meets their expectations, what would they like to see from the brand, or what changes they would like to have.
Send Product recommendations:
WhatsApp product recommendations can also be a great way to promote your loyalty campaign to newer audiences. Send out personalized product recommendations based on customers’ browsing patterns and past purchases, and subtly plug your loyalty program along with the message.
You will be providing a personalized peek into what more your brand has to offer. While doing this you can also ensure that your loyalty campaign gets the right attention. But to be able to do this, you will require setting up a WhatsApp Business API account to leverage integrations with recommendation engines for broadcasts.
Keep Customers Updated:
Consistently update customers about their loyalty rewards. Send out messages that remind them about how many store credits or reward points they have, how long before the points expire, what tier or level they are in etc. Take a look at these examples-
“Hey, Ricky. 35 Gold points are expiring in 24 Hours. Hurry and use them before it’s too late.”
“Hey, Saul. You just won 20 Loyalty points on your last purchase! You can redeem your points for discount coupons. Cheers!”
Boost Customer Loyalty using WhatsApp!
Working towards building brand loyalty and customer retention is one of the most cost-efficient and effective ways to stabilize and establish your brand among a solid base audience.
Set up strategic customer loyalty programs using Interakt WhatsApp Business API solution provider.
Get Interakt today!
