Going the Distance: Four Ways to Build a Better Customer Loyalty Program for Your Brand

It’s easy enough for a customer to join your loyalty program, especially when you’re offering an incentive such as discounts. All your customer has to do is give out some basic information, and voila! They’re in the fold, a brand new loyalty member with your company. From there, it’s happily ever after. You offer the perks; they stand solidly by you, bringing you their continued business. Simple. Or is it? In reality, just how many of those customers are act ively participating in your loyalty program? Do you know? Sure, loyalty program memberships are on the rise according to market research company eMarketer, having jumped 25 percent in the space of just two years. However, that figure may be a bit misleading. The truth is that, while loyalty program sign-ups may be more numerous, active participation in such programs is actually in decline. At the time of the study, the average US household had memberships in 29 loyalty programs; yet consumers were only active in 12 of those. That’s just 41 percent. And even that meager figure represents a drop of 2 percentage points per year over each of the preceding four years, according to a study by loyalty-marketing research company COLLOQUY.

When discounts just aren’t enough

So what’s a brand to do? How can you make your loyalty program worth your customer’s while—as well as your own? After all, gaining a new loyalty member doesn’t mean much if your customer isn’t actively participating in your program. Consider this: Does your customer loyalty program offer members anything different from what your competitors are offering? Chances are your program includes discounts. That’s a given. And what customer doesn’t appreciate a good discount? But when every other company out there is providing this staple benefit in comparable amounts, it becomes less and less likely that customers will remain loyal to any one particular brand. Frankly, it’s all too easy for customers to get lost in a sea of loyalty member discounts. They’re everywhere. In fact, just under half of internet users perceive that all rewards programs are alike, according to a 2015 eMarketer survey. The key to success, then, is to differentiate your business from the crowd. If you can offer your customers something unique and valuable beyond the usual discount, chances are they’ll be more likely to stick with your brand. Here’s some inspiration from companies who get it.

Virgin: Reward more purchases with more benefits.

That’s not to say you need to get rid of discounts entirely. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Customers still love a good discount. The goal is to be creative in terms of the loyalty perks you offer. Take the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, for example. As part of its loyalty program, the airline allows members to earn miles and tier points. Members are inducted at the Club Red tier, from which they can move up to Club Silver and then Club Gold. Here, it’s not just a discount. It’s status. And people respond to feeling important, elite. Still, even where the rewards themselves are concerned, Virgin is motivating loyalty customers with some pretty attractive offers. At the Club Red tier, members earn flight miles and receive discounts on rental cars, airport parking, hotels and holiday flights. But as members rise in tiers, they get even more. At the Club Silver tier, members earn 50 percent more points on flights, access to expedited check-in, and priority standby seating. And once they reach the top, Club Gold members receive double miles, priority boarding and access to exclusive clubhouses where they can get a drink or a massage before their flight. Now that’s some serious incentive to keep coming back for more. Discounts are still part of the equation – but they are designed with innovation and personal value in mind, elevating them to more than just savings.

Amazon Prime: Pay upfront and become a VIP.

What if your customers only had to pay a one-time upfront fee to get a year’s worth of substantial benefits? It may not sound like the smartest business idea at first glance. But take a closer look. Amazon Prime users pay a nominal $99 a year to gain free, two-day shipping on millions of products with no minimum purchase. And that’s just one benefit of going Prime. It’s true that Amazon loses $1-2 billion a year on Prime. This comes as no surprise given the incredible value the program offers. But get this: Amazon makes up for its losses in markedly higher transaction frequency. Specifically, Prime members spend an average of $1,500 a year on Amazon.com, compared with $625 spent by non-Prime users, a ccording to a 2015 report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Patagonia: Cater to customer values.

Sometimes, the draw for consumers isn’t saving money or getting a great deal. The eco-friendly outdoor clothing company Patagonia figured this out back in 2011, when it partnered with eBay to launch its Common Threads Initiative: a program that allows customers to resell their used Patagonia clothing via the company’s website. Why is this program important to customers? And how does it benefit Patagonia? The company’s brand embraces environmental and social responsibility, so it was only fitting that they create a platform for essentially recycling old clothing rather than merely throwing it away. The Common Threads Initiative helps Patagonia build a memorable brand and fierce loyalty by offering its customers a cause that aligns with deep personal values. OK, so their customers get to make a little money, too. Everybody wins.

American Airlines: Gamify your loyalty program.

If you’re going to offer your customers a loyalty program, why not make it f un? After all, engagement is key to building a strong relationship with your customer. And what better way to achieve that goal than making a game of it. American Airlines had this very thing in mind when it created its AAdvantage Passport Challenge following its merger with USAirways. The goal: find a new way to engage customers as big changes were underway. Using a custom Facebook application, American Airlines created a virtual passport to increase brand awareness while offering members a chance to earn bonus points. Customers earned these rewards through a variety of game-like activities, from answering trivia questions to tracking travel through a personalized dashboard. In the end, participants earned more than 70 percent more stamps than expected – and the airline saw a ROI of more than 500 percent. The takeaway: people like games.

Stand out from the crowd.

Your approach to your customer loyalty program should align with your overall marketing approach. Effective branding is about standing out, not blending it. Being memorable is key. To this end, keep in mind that loyalty programs are no longer a novelty. That means that yesterday’s strategies won’t work moving forward, so look for ways to rise above the noise, setting yourself apart from the cloying drone of countless other cookie-cutter programs.

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Playing the Stock Market: Seven Tips for Choosing the Right Images for Your Website

In a perfect world, every image on your website would be meticulously staged, lit and captured for you by the professional photographer of your choosing. But more often than not, budgetary realities don’t afford the luxury of being able to commission a photo shoot to fulfill every visual need on your site. Fortunately, advancements in digital photography have allowed amateur shutterbugs to create images that can stand shoulder to shoulder with those produced by the pros. As a result, the availability of excellent, high-quality stock photography has increased dramatically in recent years, and following the rule of supply and demand, the cost of these images has decreased. Whereas once major players like Getty dominated the market and commanded top dollar for every frame, today there is a proliferation of stock image sites that offer vast libraries of eye-catching images for very reasonable prices. The incredible selection of stock images available to us today is both a blessing and a curse. It’s amazing to have so many choices, but the sheer magnitude of the selection can prove daunting at times. How do you choose the right photo for your project? What should you be looking for in a stock photo, and conversely, what should you seek to avoid? Here are seven simple dos and donts that will help you master the stock market and find the best images to represent your brand and create an appealing visual tableau on your website.

1. Do: Know where to look.

In terms of cost, the stock photography market can be broken down into three basic classes: Free: Compfight and morgueFile are two examples of sites that feature images that fall under the Creative Commons license, which means you can use them for free. When dealing in these types of images, make sure you read the fine print because some are approved for commercial use while others are restricted to personal use only. While the price tag may seem appealing, many of the images you’ll find on these free sites are low-resolution and poorer quality than those you would find on other stock sites. The selection is also much more limited. After all, you do get what you pay for! Low cost: Veer, iStock and Bigstock are three excellent stock sites that offer a great selection of images in a variety of sizes. Photos on these sites range in cost from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars a piece, depending on the source and the size. Another very low cost (almost free) option is Dollar Photo Club. A one-year subscription to this site costs $99, but that membership includes 99 image downloads, with additional downloads costing just $1 each. The selection on Dollar Photo Club is on par with other stock photo sites, and all images are large, high-resolution files. Premium: The top echelon of stock photography sites – which includes industry stalwarts like Getty and Corbis – are much more restrictive in the selection of their contributing photographers. While they command much higher license fees for their images, the benefit to paying top dollar is that their photos are not as widely used as those found on lower-cost alternatives, so they have a more unique feel.

2. Do: Know your rights.

The process of purchasing a stock image is not necessarily as straightforward as buying your average widget. Because these images are the intellectual property of the photographer that created them, there are usage rights attached to them that govern the length of time, medium, size, format and location of use. Again, there are three categories you’ll need to understand: Royalty free: This is the most common license type you’ll find in today’s market, and it is also the most ideal, as it is the least restrictive. This license allows you to pay for an image once and use it without limits across multiple projects. Rights managed: This type of license allows you to use the image for a limited period of time for a specified medium or application. If you want to continue using the image after this time period expires or for a different purpose, you must pay more to renew the license. Extended: Some sites allow you to “extend” the license on an image in order to use it in ways not typically allowed under a rights-managed license structure. This is often done on a case-by-case basis and it usually applies to using an image on tangible goods (t-shirts, posters, etc.). Such a license is rarely, if ever, needed for the images you will be using on your website. Try to stick with royalty-free images as much as possible, as they are the easiest to manage for long-term use on the Web, and there’s no lack of excellent quality photos that come with this option.

3. Don’t: Be afraid to dig deep.

When searching for stock images, you’ll naturally start by querying a term or keyword that relates to the type of image you need. When reviewing the results of your search, however, don’t be too quick to select images that appear on the first few pages. These are undoubtedly the most popular images because many searchers that have come before you have already downloaded them. This means that the early results are also images you are most likely to see used (and perhaps overused) elsewhere. Don’t be afraid to jump ahead in the results pages to see what images you can uncover deeper in your search. Often, there are amazing photos that are far less popular, and using these hidden gems minimizes the risk that your selection will show up elsewhere – like your competitor’s website.

4. Don’t: Fall into the “handshake photo” trap.

We’ve all seen the “handshake photo” – the bland, uninspired image of two men in suits (or at least shirts and ties) shaking hands that is universal visual shorthand for “doing business.” Generic stock images like these make your website look like it’s straight out of the template factory. Because these images are so very commonplace, if you decide to use them on your site, you all but guarantee that the impression you leave with your visitors will not be a memorable one. Besides the aforementioned “businessmen shaking hands” image, other terribly overused and cliched stock photos include:

• The smiling customer service representative wearing a headset (“We’re here to help!”)
• Chess pieces (meant to illustrate “strategy”)
• A group of businesspeople (with the appropriately diverse representation of gender and ethnicity, of course) sitting around a conference room table doing....business of some kind? (representing “collaboration”)

Undoubtedly, you’ve encountered photos like theses many, many times in your travels around the Web, although you probably don’t recall them – exactly the reason you want to avoid these utterly forgettable images at all costs!

5. Do: Be mindful of people problems.

If you decide to use a stock image of a person on your site, keep in mind that this person is becoming the de facto face of your company. It may sound crazy, but I have seen testing sessions where users react negatively to a company due to a stock image of a person. “I don’t like the way they look” or “I don’t trust them” are two comments I have heard. While you and I know and recognize that this is a stock image and that the person in the photo has nothing to do with your company, many casual users don’t think this way. They see a photo of another human being, and they instinctively react to it. If that reaction is a negative one, then they will naturally come away with an unfavorable impression of your brand as well. Whenever you use stock photos of people, realize the impact of those decisions. Whoever graces the front page of your website is welcoming your visitors and representing your organization by default.

6. Don’t: Forget about orientation.

Photos come in two orientations – portrait and landscape. As its name suggests, portrait orientation is like a portrait, with the height of the image being greater than the width. A landscape image is just the opposite, with the width being greater than the height. When reviewing stock image options, it’s important to be mindful of where this image will be used on your site and which orientation is best suited for that space. If you select the wrong orientation, the image will need be cropped to fit the space, which can sometimes result in an awkward and unattractive end result that negates the effect you were hoping to create.

7. Do: Check the price tag

While the price of stock images on the whole has come down significantly from where it was many years ago, photos can still vary quite widely in cost – especially when you are dealing in rights-managed images. Fortunately, many sites allows you to limit your search to a specified price range and to royalty-free images so that you don’t find the perfect photo only to discover that it’s a major budget-buster. I personally really like using Dollar Photo Club for the simple fact that all images on the site are just $1, so I never have to worry about an image being out of my price range, because I know what I will spend before I even start my search! If you are using a stock image site that does not offer this type of flat-rate pricing, just be mindful of the prices of the images you are considering, and remember that you will probably need many images to complete your web development project, so don’t blow your budget on any one photo.

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Taming the Word of Mouth Monster

The customer's word is king.

In today’s culture of the Web, nothing holds greater sway than word of mouth. If want to grow your business, you need the help of your customers and fans.

Let’s look at an example:

The first clip is from SouthEnd Home Improvement's website; the second is a review that one of their customers posted on their Google Places page.

Both essentially say the same thing, speaking to the superior quality of the workmanship and customer service provided by the company. Yet Josh's review has probably motivated far more prospective clients to pick up the phone than the company's own site.

Why is this the case? After all, we don’t know Josh, and he hasn’t done anything to earn our trust.

However, we trust him implicitly because he is not affiliated with the company and thus (at least theoretically) not motivated by a sales agenda or self-interest.

Is it fair? Maybe not. But if you're going to compete successfully in today's consumer-driven marketplace, that's the reality you must live in. In this post-mass media era, you simply cannot talk frequently and loudly enough about your own products and services to muscle your way to the top.

Old marketing has been dethroned.

Marketing was a much simpler proposition back in the days when communication flowed in one direction from companies to customers.

You could buy exposure in the print, radio and TV media outlets of your choosing, and you could control the message down to the last detail. Your investment could be mapped out neatly on schedules and calendars, and you had access to all kinds of reassuring data like reach, frequency and cost per impression. Sign a contract, write a check, hand over your perfectly polished advertisements and wait for the phone to ring.

Traditional advertising is still there for the taking. The problem is that your customers aren’t buying into it anymore. There's simply too much information available to them from too many different channels. All the beautifully crafted ads your budget can buy can't save you if your Google Places page is littered with scathing reviews from dissatisfied customers.

Today's marketplace is ruled by the customer.

Companies today have inherited the burden of mistrust created by generations of brands before them that thrived on the shallow messages and misleading claims of traditional advertising.

Today's consumers view themselves as a band of brothers united behind the cause of holding companies accountable for providing quality products and services and making good on their promises. It's an "us against them" mentality, and you're on the wrong side of the fight until you prove otherwise.

You can't hide the truth from your customers any longer. A disgruntled customer 10 years ago was a mild annoyance. Customer service people could silence the complainer and wash their hands of the matter. It required a screw-up of much larger proportions for a company's bad practices to come to light in the traditional media.

However, one unhappy customer who voices their discontent on Facebook or Twitter has the power to cost you hundreds of potential sales. If something goes wrong and you're not pulling out all the stops to make things right, you're taking a big gamble with your brand's reputation.

In a consumer-driven marketplace, no brand is untouchable. No company is too big to be brought down by their customer.

Don't slay the dragon – make it your friend.

Word of mouth marketing is a fearful proposition for most businesses because it doesn't conform neatly to the metrics and regulations that drive the corporate world.

It's a lot like lightning in that there's no way to predict when and where it might strike. As such it's nearly impossible to capture on record and quantify. However, when it does touch down, there's no denying the power of it's impact.

So how do you harness this inherently anti-corporate force and put it to work for you in the real day-in, day-out, nitty-gritty world of business?

Treat every customer like Oprah.

While word of mouth is not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination, the advent of the digital age and social media have magnified its importance by putting a megaphone in the hands of every customer.

As a result, the customer service landscape is littered with potential PR landmines because you can't always tell who holds the biggest megaphone. Aggravate the wrong customer, and your reputation is toast.

Sure you can tell which members of your online community have the most Facebook friends or Twitter followers or blog subscribers. But things get messy when you encounter these people in the real world. They don't have their subscriber count tattooed on their forehead, and they don't introduce themselves with their Twitter handle.

So what do you do? You must treat every customer as though they have an Oprah-like ability to exert their influence.

Tread carefully, and make sure you demonstrate to each and every customer that you respect them and that their opinions matter. Maybe 99 out of 100 of them won't talk about you anyway, but you had better make sure that the one who speaks up is a happy camper.

Underpromise and overdeliver.

When you are in front of a prospect and you have the opportunity to make a sale, it's hard to force yourself to leave any cards on the table. You want to talk up every feature and every benefit in the most superlative degree.

However, if that's what it takes to close the deal, you'd better be prepared not only to make good on every claim but also to go above and beyond the call of duty.

Your sales pitch is your customer's baseline expectation. If you do only what you say, they'll thank you for a job well done and move on.

But if you go the extra mile and do more than promised, then you'll get them talking.

Never make a sale at the cost of your reputation.

You want to hear the cash register ring as much and as often as possible. However, selling your products to a customer when you know they're not actually a good fit for that person's specific needs is like playing Russian roulette.

If the product isn't really the right solution, your customer is going to be unhappy, and they're going to point the finger at you. They'll either assume that your product is subpar or, far worse, that your company is dishonest in its claims. That sale will end up costing your company and your brand's reputation dearly.

Make every impression count.

Generally speaking, your customers have short-term memories. Your relationship with them is only as good as your last encounter, and your brand’s reputation lives and dies in the moment of interaction.

Every phone call, every email, every visit to your store counts. That means you had better make sure that every person your customers come into contact with understands the importance of every touchpoint.

Customers are allowed to have bad days, to be unpleasant, even to be irrational. Customer service people are not.

Be remarkable – literally.

Your customers are not professional spokespeople. Promoting your company is not anywhere near the top of their agenda.

To get them talking about you, you must overcome the inertia of their natural tendency to talk about pretty much anything other than your company.

How can you do that? You must surprise and delight them. You must offer them something that's truly new, innovative and exciting. Your products or services must make their lives easier or better in ways that are meaningful and significant.

If you want buzz around your restaurant, you have to make it buzzworthy. Everything from the food to the service to the ambiance must offer something your customers can't get anywhere else in town.

Reinvent the wheel if you have to. When your customers find something so great that it ignites their passion, they won’t be able to keep it to themselves.

Feed them a steady diet of good content.

Your customers don't go through their lives talking up the products and services they use like they just stepped out of a commercial from the 1950s.

However, everyone loves a hot tip. Mary who enjoys working in her yard doesn't call up her girlfriend to have a heart-to-heart conversation about fertilizer. However, if she finds a great video on the Scotts website about how to keep her lawn lush and green all summer long, you'd better believe she'll email a link to the other members of her gardening club and retweet it for the benefit of the gardening enthusiasts who follow her.

With the simple act of sharing the video link, Mary's given Scotts her word of mouth endorsement as a trusted expert.

Content marketing works. Period.

Get the conversation started.

You can't control what your customers say about you. In fact, you can't force them to say anything about you at all. What you can do, however, is get the conversation started.

Social media has removed the communication barriers between you and your customers. Use that to your advantage by identifying the motivations that drive your fans to act and giving them ways to carry your torch that cater to their passions and personalities.

Ask for their input. Recognize their good ideas. Provide good information and inspiration that they'll want to pass along to their own networks. Get creative and make it fun to be your fan so they'll invite others to join the party.

No one ever said it would be easy.

Building good word-of-mouth marketing around your brand is a slow, arduous climb of earning the trust of your customers and motivating them to act on your behalf.

There are no shortcuts here. If you want good word of mouth, you must earn it the old-fashioned way through hard work and honest communication. You must deliver top quality products and services that provide exceptional value. You must develop authentic relationships with your customers and be attentive and responsive to their needs. If something goes wrong, you must go above and beyond to set things right. In all things, demonstrating genuine respect for your customers is paramount.

However, all of this hard work will not go unrewarded. The payoff for your investment of time and resources is getting and keeping the best kind of customers — true, dedicated fans that become advocates for your brand.

Thanks to the power of social media, when your evangelists start talking, they’re not just going to tell one person, they’re going to broadcast it to everyone in their social circles on the Web – via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, their blog, etc. As a result, you’ll not only gain exposure to potential new customers, you’ll have an inherent foundation of trust by association.

The ripple effect that occurs as the good word of mouth around your brand continues to spread virally from one person’s network to another will do far more to sustain and propel the growth of your business in today’s economy than any form of paid advertisement that your money could buy.

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