Have traditional loyalty programs seen their usefulness fade out? Have punch cards become irrelevant in this digital/mobile age? Well, yes and no. Loyalty programs have always been a part of retail marketing to your current customer base – a device for getting your customers to continue to choose your store, while upping their frequency of purchase. But, some companies have started to sour on them and discontinued using them.
With the technology available today, there are some amazing new ways to build modern loyalty programs that not only appeal to your customer base, but can become an integral part of their day, even when they are not visiting your store.
One such program has been developed by Dave and Busters. Tying in with their game-based entertainment model, Dave and Buster's developed a few mobile games that their customers can play on their phones or mobile devices when not at the store. Just like many of the games at Dave and Buster's, these games allow the user to earn tickets towards prizes they can redeem next time they come in. It's a good use of modern technology.
In a Marketing Smarts podcast interview, Dave and Buster's Kevin Bachus said this about creating these games as a loyalty program, "First and foremost, it's about staying connected with the guests, so that they will come more frequently. I think that, with all the different entertainment options that are available to someone, having our name front and center causes them to think about us when they're thinking about what they want to do that evening, or weekend. That's important… If there was one thing that I was looking to do with this, it would be to increase the frequency of visits to our stores. That said, if this becomes a compelling product on its own, and it generates its own revenue through the in-app purchases that we make available…that opens up all kinds of new avenues for things that we could do and new ways to interact with our guests."
This isn't to say that more old school loyalty programs don't work. But the traditional loyalty card has gone digital with a wide range of reward levels for points earned. A recent program by local Detroit chain, National Coney Island. It's a "Coney Bucks" reward system that has doubled registrations and increased store visits by 40%.
Loyalty programs today can be carried around on your customers' mobile devices. They can collect data for you that was unimaginable 10 years ago. They can engage customers when they're not even thinking about your brand. If you haven't looked at some of the new ways to use today's technology to connect with your customer base, it's time you took a deeper look.
Mike McClure, suddenly hungry for coney dogs
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I agree loyalty programs, modern or traditional, can be great things. However, having any loyalty program that your staff doesn’t understand and know how to interact with is so much more painful than not having a loyalty program at all.
I think that can play a large role in the usefulness and benefit of any program, both from a customer data and marketing perspective. I think we all remember the nightmare the foursquare based loyalty programs were, because the establishments that created that loyalty programs always seemed to neglect educating their staff on how to use them.
I absolutely agree. It doesn’t matter if you have the most whiz-bang advanced tech loyalty program that has everything a customer would love, if your employees who will be doing the execution don’t understand it – or worse, don’t even know about it. Yes, I remember wandering around Barnes and Noble until I found someone who knew about the Foursquare promotion and how to give me my discount. That’s not good! Thanks for your comment