In order to create a thriving business, retailers need to provide consumers with the best customer experience. It’s important to create an experience where customers choose you over competitors and want to keep doing business with you. Membership cards and loyalty programs for retailers are an increasingly popular way to cultivate customer loyalty. These loyalty programs have become a powerful customer retention tool that encourages repeat purchases, higher spending, and more word-of-mouth marketing. In fact, recent data show that:
- Growing your loyal customers by just 5% can grow sales by over 25%. (Source)
- Loyalty program members spend approximately 37% more than those who don’t belong to a program. (Source)
- Over 70% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand if it has a good loyalty program. (Source)
An effective loyalty program allows you to easily unlock these advantages for your retail store.
Benefits of Creating a Membership Program for Retail Sales
Here are three unique benefits of creating a membership program or loyalty cards for your retail business:
1. Loyalty cards help you stand out from the competition.
Retail margins tend to be low because of the sheer amount of competition in the industry. As a result, price isn’t something that you can use as a significant differentiator. Membership programs and loyalty cards allow you to get around the pricing issue cleverly. Creating a program that offers incentives is one way to ensure customers keep choosing your business rather than the competition.
2. Membership programs can provide valuable insights into customer purchasing habits.
Loyalty cards can help you track dozens of valuable metrics within your POS system. These metrics provide you with valuable information about your average transaction value, customer retention rate, and customer preferences.
3. Membership programs and loyalty cards make forecasting easier.
Retailers have experienced numerous economic challenges in recent years that have made forecasting much more difficult. Fluctuating demand and supply chain issues mean that more retailers are either struggling to meet orders or have too much product sitting in their inventories. Membership programs can help by giving retailers insights into what customers want and how to keep their most loyal customers engaged.
Steps to Create a Membership Program for Your Retail Store
If you’re wondering how to create a membership program for your store, here are a few helpful steps to get started:
1. Study your current customers.
The best loyalty programs are based on how your current customers behave. How much does a “loyal customer” buy in a year? What type of products do they buy, and how frequently do they make purchases? How long have they been a customer? How can your brand improve your relationship with these valuable customers?
Before launching a membership card or loyalty program, it’s important to assess your customers’ current level of satisfaction.
2. Find creative ways to design and promote your loyalty program.
You want your loyalty program to feel valuable and exclusive. This is where the design of your loyalty cards can help. Finding creative ways to help promote your program is also important. What clever ideas could you do to launch your program and incentivize customers to join?
3. Offer a variety of rewards.
Discounts aren’t the only way to provide more value to your customers. Those who earn enough loyalty points can turn them in for free tickets to local events, free subscriptions to additional products and services, or even donations in their name to the charity of their choice.
4. Create multiple ways for people to join.
Once you’ve launched your customer loyalty program, make sure you’re promoting the various ways in which people can join. Place loyalty cards next to your register, print information about joining on the bottom of a receipt, or place a QR code on your door for people to sign up for a loyalty card on their way out of the store.
Design the Best Membership Program & Loyalty Cards for Your Business
If you’re ready to maximize the power of loyalty cards for your retail store, Card Market is here to help! Contact us today to discuss which products are best suited for your business.