How rewards can help enhance your brand awareness
According to a research study, customers tend to spend 19 per cent more after joining a company’s online community.
A brand community forms based on a customer’s attachment to a product or a service because when a customer finds a unique value towards a brand, they are more likely to connect with it.
Today businesses are focusing more and more on building online brand communities due to the following reasons;
- Retention of customers
- Creating valuable advocates
- Building a strong bond with consumers
- Reduction in support costs, and many more.
Online business communities have been growing in number, but more than 65 per cent of the total business in a company comes from existing customers. So the question remains how can businesses build brand loyalty?
There are many ways to do this but one of the ways is through rewards.
Rewarding customers is one of the easiest ways a business can enhance its brand and retain existing customers as it shows the customer that it is a consumer-centric brand.
Here are some of the ways your business can use rewards to accelerate brand loyalty:
1. Make your customer interaction worthwhile using points
Reward points are a great way to help your business build brand goals.
The shopping points enables you to influence a wide number of consumer behaviour who use these points during their purchase.
Also Read: Building up customer loyalty with emotional branding
Businesses use points in different ways, whether to increase the number of social followers, increasing repeat purchase rates, or getting more product reviews.
Points can make each an every action extremely rewardable for both businesses and customers.
2. Create a sense of gratification using exclusive perks
Build a brand around pampering your customers.
As social beings, we tend to care a lot about how much acclamation we receive from our peers and even our favourite brands!
Some examples of great perks that brands use are status perks, member-only discounts and first to know offers!
These perks make your customers feel more valuable which is why it often results in them sticking to your brand.
3. Reach out to your customers wherever they are
Provide your customers with a place to connect with other members, where they can become more than just shoppers and instead become a community of people with mutual interests.
Creating community pages via social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is a good way to do this.
Try to communicate with existing customers through posts. Another way is to facilitate discussions within communities through interesting insights as this can help in building engagement and avoid stagnation.
4. Retain existing customers
Have you ever wondered how some brands retain their consumers?
The answer: consistency.
Most successful brands offer various types of rewards to customers regularly. These rewards encourage community members to stay connected and on their toes for perks.
Also Read: Why the traditional story arc is obsolete for brands
It is important to remain consistent, otherwise it can send off the wrong message and perks can often be seen as a sales stunt. Nevertheless, if brands are not consistent, customers tend to forget about it.
5. Trigger excitement with out-of-the-box reward programs
Brands do this through new product launches, holiday campaigns, rebranding, contest, sweepstakes, etc. It is vital to build a sense of enthusiasm around the brand, depending on what the brand stands for.
One of the companies that does this well is Omaze, an online fundraising platform which builds excitement over donation by offering one lucky contributor a unique opportunity to spend a day with their favourite stars.
These are some ways businesses can improve brand communities. Be it rewards points, coupons, special discounts, memberships, event passes, etc.
Strategise what marketing methods you will use in order to build awareness. In addition, you can always consult a professional before implementing rewards or loyalty program.
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