Retail Loyalty Programs Simplified for 2009



Posted: Monday, December 01, 2008

by Ron Pawlowski
The Retail Institute

Secrets of Building Loyalty Now and for the Future In these challenging times, retailers face these key issues that are critical for long term growth and actual survival:

-Building traffic in a weak economy

-Converting as many walk in customers to buyers

-Building the average sale

-Building loyalty and repeat visits by customers In the early 1990's Loyalty Programs were the latest rage. Every retailer jumped on the bandwagon and offer an array of programs making customer wallets and purses bulge with slick plastic loyalty program cards.

By the late 1990's, the glamour of many of these Loyalty Programs fizzled. Customers balked at the complexity of many programs and their bulging wallets full of these cards and opted out of most of them. Beyond that, many were designed to deliver mediocre rewards after a long drawn out purchasing timeline by customers.

Today, customers want earlier gratification and simplicity. They don't want all those loyalty cards weighing them down either.

The best Loyalty Program can be set up very easily with a high acceptance level from today's customer:

Offer a percentage discount coupon with every purchase. You can also add an expiry date if you want a customer to return within say 30 days of their original purchase. Most Point of Sale retail systems easily accommodate a percentage discount on a single or multiple purchase.

There are some distinct advantages of a percent discount coupon to build loyalty:

1) It's simple and requires no cards, points, extra software or administration

2) You can set up a program in minutes.

3) If the coupon is the size of a bill, they can easily fit in a purse or wallet. It's not bulky and they see it every time they pull some cash out of their wallet.

4) By creating an expiry date you can control when a customer is motivated to return to your store(s).

5) Customer's see this type of program as instant gratification. Come back to the store, show the coupon and they benefit instantly.

6) A percentage discount motivates customers to buy more. The more they buy, the more they save!

I've created a real simple MS Word template that you can edit as you wish. Then print off discount coupons with your store's name and phone number in the box provided. They print out the same size as a bill, and you can enter an expiry date of your choice.

At this date, you may want to have them expire on the 25th of December to motivate customer to return for their final Christmas shopping. You can also consider the end of January if you want to attract repeat customers in the slower January buying period. Lastly, employees can sign the coupon when issuing them to authenticate them and prevent fraud. You can also change the percentage discount to whatever you like but keep in mind that the coupon should apply to all goods even if they are on sale. Keep it simple!

The simple template is available for any retailer to customize and print out. Just email me at ronp@retailinsitute.ca and launch an effective loyalty program that customers will readily embrace. Build repeat traffic!

TAKE ACTION TODAY

1) Set up your store to offer a percentage discount coupon on return visits.

2) Determine a policy on percentage offered and expiry date.

3) Decide if sale goods will be subject to an additional discount with the coupon. If not you'll need to state this on the coupon.

HANG IN THERE!

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