Every business owner understands it’s easier to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. That’s why many merchants use loyalty programs to incentivize customers to come back and spend more with them. When done right, loyalty rewards, discounts, special early access, etc. can help to drive incremental revenue and maximize your customer lifetime value (CLV).

All that being said, it’s important to remember that loyalty or reward programs are long-term undertakings. Yes, they’re super beneficial to your company, but to reap those advantages, you need to periodically evaluate your loyalty program performance. Some consider loyalty programs to be money pits — and they can be if you don’t keep track of your loyalty program ROI.

So, let’s back up a bit: return on investment (ROI) is a financial metric that evaluates how profitable an investment is. To calculate the ROI, you need to divide the net profit by the cost of the investment, and express it as a percentage. The greater the ROI, the more profitable the investment.

To get a handle on your loyalty program’s success, you need to measure its ROI. The results will help you decide if your loyalty strategy is working or not. If it’s working, you can continue what you’re doing and double-down on your initiatives. On the flip side, you can rejuvenate poorly performing loyalty programs by optimizing offers, running referral programs, or getting customer feedback.

Listen to this post instead:

How do I calculate ROI for my loyalty program?

As with any business initiative, the success of a loyalty program can be measured by its ROI. The formula to calculate it is pretty straightforward.

Return on Investment = (Total Revenue - Total Cost of Running the Loyalty Program) / Total Cost

Loyalty program ROI calculation: A real-life example

Here's an example from a merchant we have been working closely with. I'm not going to share their name, but I can share their anonymized results so you can see how we assess the impact of their loyalty program.

Challenges in measuring loyalty program ROI

The formula for calculating your loyalty program ROI is simple enough to understand. However, there are a few challenges that can make it more difficult to accurately measure your ROI.

Attributing revenue to the right sources

One of the biggest challenges lies in capturing key metrics and pulling the necessary data from various sources — such as your marketing, sales, finance, tech teams, etc. You need to make sure that you’re attributing your revenue gains to the right sources.

For example, your regular customers are your most valuable ones, with or without a rewards program. How can you be sure their value is attributed to your loyalty program?

It can also be tricky to figure out if a purchase was triggered by loyalty program benefits or if it’s just a customer’s normal buying behavior. You need to have the right tracking mechanisms in place to be able to accurately calculate a loyalty program’s ROI. 

Some of the ways to do this include using robust loyalty apps (like Marsello), discount codes, coupons, etc. to track customer behavior that can only be attributed to loyalty programs.

With Marsello, you can track the metrics like change in repeat purchase rate and increase in turnover from loyalty members, as we've done above. This will get you a much more accurate picture of your return.

It takes time to see results

Not only will you need considerable time to gather the data required to calculate the ROI, but it may also take time for your points programs to show results. Customers must first be aware of such programs, engage with them, and rack up enough points on their loyalty cards. It may take months (or more) for your loyalty program to start paying off, so you won’t know your true ROI right away. 

💡 Pro tip: Rather than committing to a 3 month trial across all your sites, commit to one site for at least 1 year (expanding to other sites if you see results earlier). Starting with fewer sites but allowing for a longer time period will give you a much better indication of the impact of the program for your business.

Metrics to consider when measuring the impact of your loyalty programs

Beyond the ROI calculation above, there are many ways you can measure the impact of loyalty programs. You can look at how they affect your revenue, customer base growth, and engagement, among other things.  

You could choose to measure success purely based on financial returns or through KPIs such as engagement rate, brand awareness, etc. Here are some of the data points you may need to track.

• Transaction volume
• Average order value
• Total revenue
• Cost of loyalty program memberships
• Marketing cost
• Purchase frequency of members and non-members

The key is to track these over time. Remember, it takes time to build loyalty, so running a successful rewards program is a marathon, not a sprint. 

And before you calculate the ROI of your loyalty program, make sure you’re clear about your business objectives. What are your specific goals? Do you want to increase revenue by a certain percentage? Reduce your marketing expenditure while boosting sales? Grow your repeat customer base?

This will be essential for setting targets for your loyalty program and understanding its impact on your bottom line.

Direct ROI of loyalty programs

Direct loyalty program ROI can come in several forms, including:

Increased sales and revenue from repeat purchases

A loyalty program can significantly contribute to a business' goal of increasing revenue and profit. According to a 2023 report by Gitnux, the likelihood of selling to a new customer is less than 20%. Conversely, this probability rises to nearly 70% for an existing customer.

By enhancing customer satisfaction, fostering brand loyalty, attracting new customers, and gathering important customer data, your loyalty program can lead to tangible financial gains. You can also make informed decisions about product development and marketing strategies, further amplifying revenue.

Ultimately, loyalty programs serve as strategic tools for driving sales, revenue growth, and long-term profitability in any business endeavor.

Just ask Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty, which was looking for an email marketing solutions provider when it came across Marsello. Very quickly, the business realized the full potential of Marsello’s tools and decided to also set up loyalty programs. This resulted in Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty unlocking new audiences, increasing its customer engagement, and doubling its revenue.

Reduced marketing costs through targeted promotions

Acquiring new customers through marketing efforts and sales outreach can be resource-intensive, consuming both time and funds. Customer acquisition costs pile up especially when leads opt for competitors.

Since loyalty programs help drive sales from existing customers, they enable your brand to mitigate the expenses linked with customer acquisition.You spend less to drive sales, which leads to a higher bottom line.

Indirect ROI of loyalty programs

Now that we’ve covered the direct ways to measure ROI, here’s a look at the indirect metrics that you may want to track.

Improved customer retention

When customers feel valued and content, they are more inclined to remain loyal and make repeat purchases. Implementing a loyalty program can significantly contribute to this effect.

For instance, imagine being a long-term participant in a supermarket’s loyalty program, accumulating rewards for discounts or free items. Such incentives foster loyalty, encouraging folks to continue supporting your brand despite alternative options.

Enhanced brand loyalty and customer satisfaction

Loyalty programs enhance customer appreciation by rewarding purchases with discounts or complimentary items, fostering a sense of value. Tailoring rewards based on individual preferences demonstrates care and enhances the shopping experience.

This helps to elevate customer satisfaction levels. Satisfied customers are more likely to return, which just goes to show the role of customer loyalty programs in enhancing overall satisfaction and fostering repeat business.

Positive word-of-mouth and referrals

Referral marketing, aka word-of-mouth marketing is a highly effective and sought-after strategy for customer acquisition. Recommendations from friends and family, along with good reviews on social media carry more weight than brand messages.

This is one of the most significant gains from loyalty programs — devoted customers become brand advocates, sharing their positive experiences and benefits received from your business. Through their advocacy, your company can gain new customers organically, without incurring any additional costs.

Data collection and insights for better business decisions

Understanding customers is crucial for business success. Rewards programs offer valuable insights into loyal customers, including their personal details and preferences. This enables businesses to enhance customer experiences and satisfaction by tailoring their services to meet individual preferences.

Bonus points if your loyalty program works across multiple channels. Going omnichannel with your loyalty efforts means you can collect data from all customer touchpoints, while providing a seamless experience no matter where or how they’re shopping.

Fashion label ALPHA60 was looking to improve its customer-first marketing efforts by providing all its customers with the same great experience. ALPHA60 brought in in-store and online sales data into Klaviyo, allowing the brand to display points balances, segment customers, and send personalized emails, no matter how customers shop.

By using Marsello for loyalty and marketing, ALPHA60 was able to attain a repeat purchase rate of 70%, wildly surpassing what is considered to be a good repeat purchase rate in the industry (between 20% and 40%).

Tools to track your metrics

Loyalty program solutions like Marsello give you a whole host of tools required to track metrics related to loyalty programs. 

The platform's built in marketing analytics capabilities can shed light on which channels and strategies yield the best results. Plus, you can track your loyalty program performance overtime, so you can improve both in the short- and long-term. 

Final words

Loyalty programs can offer substantial returns on investment for your business. The right program can enhance customer satisfaction, drive repeat purchases, and boost retention rates. It also provides valuable data and insights for informed decision-making and optimized marketing strategies. 

That’s why it’s so important to invest in the right solution AND track your return on that investment. Measuring your loyalty program ROI helps you improve, so you can continue to delight customers and keep them coming back.

Need help doing just that? Check out our ROI Calculator to see how your loyalty programs are performing or talk to an expert to discuss opportunities for revenue growth.

Get advice from a loyalty expert and start driving repeat sales.

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

Fun fact: 20% of customers stated that rewards programs influence their choice of where to shop. 

There are clear benefits to having a loyalty program. However, there are also some hard truths: Just because it’s driving customers doesn’t mean it’s making bank. Businesses that fail to recognize they’re overspending on rewards or misjudging their importance are more likely to suffer losses. 

To create a successful loyalty program, be sure to check whether its benefits outweigh the costs right from the outset. This means taking the time to calculate loyalty points accurately and making sure that you’re valuing your program’s points in line with your business goals and targets. 

This comprehensive guide will help you determine the optimal value for loyalty points. We’ll dive into essential pricing principles, effective strategies, real-world examples, and common challenges.

By the end of this guide, you'll be able to set yourself up to achieve consistent and lucrative returns from your loyalty marketing strategy.

What are loyalty rewards?

Loyalty rewards are incentives offered by businesses to encourage and reward repeat purchases by customers. They can come in the form of:

• points
• discounts
• exclusive benefits

…all of which are designed to build and maintain a strong, loyal customer base.

Think of it this way: loyalty rewards are the currency of customer appreciation, and that’s why some of the world’s most customer-centric brands — including Starbucks, Sephora, and Amazon — invest a great deal in their loyalty and rewards initiatives. 

These companies know that loyalty programs encourage repeat purchases while nurturing relationships with their customers. 

Rewards programs also have a tangible impact on sales metrics. Some programs require reaching a specific cash or credit card spending threshold for loyalty points. This encourages higher splurging in a single transaction to increase basket size and average transaction value. 

In fact, our research shows that on average, a loyalty member spends 72% more than an anonymous shopper.

Principles of pricing rewards

Pricing customer loyalty rewards requires a balance between attraction and sustainability to ensure immediate engagement and long-term profitability. Your rewards must be enticing enough to capture attention without compromising your profit margins or undervaluing your products.

You can achieve this balance by keeping the following in mind:

Considerations when pricing rewards

To calculate loyalty points more accurately, consider the following factors when designing your program.

1. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

CLV is the overall expected revenue from customers throughout their engagement. Thus, it helps you determine the maximum reward program investment while maintaining profitability.  

Customers with a CLV above your average CLV indicates that they are long-term customers who are engaged and loyal. You can offer them high-value rewards, such as VIP events, limited-edition products, or loftier monetary rewards. Conversely, lower CLV shoppers can enjoy modest rewards like free shipping on certain thresholds to encourage ongoing engagement while retaining positive ROI.

2. Cost of rewards

Cost of rewards is a key metric to avoid overspending. Your total loyalty point rewards cost mustn’t exceed the incremental benefits generated by increased customer spending. 

Note: Incremental benefits don’t only mean higher sales. It can also include non-monetary benefits like increased customer retention, improved brand loyalty, and more word-of-mouth referrals.

Add the product/service, fulfillment, and administrative expenses associated with granting rewards to get your total cost of rewards. Then, compare that against the benefits to analyze the potential return on investment for different reward options.

For example, if offering a free product as a reward incurs a direct cost of $5 to your business, you should ensure this cost is more than covered by the additional spending or engagement the reward generates.

3. Competitive positioning

This factor influences your offering’s perceived value relative to competitors. If your competitors offer similar rewards at a lower price point, you may need to tweak your pricing strategy to stay competitive. Otherwise, you can justify a premium price with unique, high-quality rewards.

You can even go a step further by identifying areas where competitors fall short and strategizing to fill those gaps. Conducting market research analysis can be helpful in such a case. 

"On average, transactions made by loyalty members are worth over 60% more than anonymous transactions. Imagine even just 5% of your customer-base joins your loyalty program, and spends 60% more per transaction. Think what that would do to your bottom line."

- Rory Moss, Loyalty Expert

4. Economic conditions

Economic conditions can intensify market competition. During downturns, shoppers become more price-conscious and seek value for money. You can choose to engage in price wars or offer aggressive pricing strategies (i.e., offering higher-than-normal loyalty points) to gain customers.

Since this external factor is inevitable, you can only mitigate their effects to some extent. Leverage predictive analytics to anticipate shifts in demand and adjust your pricing like you would for competitive positioning.

5. Market demand

Responding to market demand for loyalty program rewards involves monitoring purchasing patterns, survey results, and industry trends. Insights from these activities shed light on which reward types appeal the most to your customer base.

When market demand for exclusive events is high, customers perceive these offerings as valuable and are willing to pay premium prices for them. Thus, you can charge more for experiential rewards.

Pro-tip: Market demands fluctuate. Continuously monitor your pricing strategy’s performance and adjust it as needed.

Point structuring

Customers may perceive the program as less valuable if it doesn’t meet their expectations or if the loyalty point bonus takes too long to accumulate. It can lead to decreased participation and engagement. 

Here are two ways to structure a well-designed points system that serves your (and your customers’) needs:

Point Valuation

Set a monetary value for each loyalty point. It can be a fraction of the average profit margin per transaction or your CLV. 

For instance, if each loyalty point is valued at $1.00, the program becomes straightforward and highly perceivable in terms of value, making it easy for customers to understand how much they’re earning with each transaction.

It’s best to start with a conservative point value. After monitoring customer response and performance metrics, make adjustments to obtain the optimal point value.

Point-to-spend Ratio

Specify the number of loyalty points‌ customers will earn for every dollar spent on purchases. A higher ratio encourages more frequent purchases to accrue points faster. Meanwhile, a lower ratio delays point accumulation but helps reduce program expenses. 

Industry benchmarks are a good reference point, but maintain it in line with your objectives. For instance, if the goal is to increase customer retention, opt for a higher ratio to encourage repeat purchases and ongoing engagement.

Refer to these price structuring options when deciding on the reward types you’ll offer. But before we get into these, here are more strategies to calculate loyalty points more accurately.

4 steps to sustainable rewards pricing

Follow these practical strategies to optimize your reward pricing while keeping the loyalty program compelling and aligned with your financial goals.

1. Understand cost-based pricing vs. value-based pricing

Cost-based pricing focuses on covering loyalty program expenses and guaranteeing profitability, while value-based seeks to connect rewards with perceived customer value.

Cost-based pricing calculates the direct costs associated with providing rewards. It’s a safer option for startups or small businesses with limited resources. It sets prices based on tangible costs rather than uncertain market factors or vague perceived value. 

Here’s a simplified illustration without factoring in retention rates, seasonal fluctuations, competitor strategies, and other pricing factors. 

You’re running a loyalty program, costing you $22 per individual ($15 for reward product costs, $5 for marketing expenses, and $2 for administrative overhead). If you aim for a 20% profit margin, you should be earning $27.60 per customer enrolled ($22 total cost per customer / 0.8 profit margin).

Value-based pricing, on the other hand, doesn’t focus on cost recovery. You calculate loyalty points pricing based on its impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. It’s ideal for businesses that value brand reputation, such as luxury goods and high-end technology.

For instance, you could offer personalized services or products not available to the general public. This approach enhances their perceived value and can justify a higher points requirement, encouraging more purchases and engagement from members.

2. Incorporate customer feedback and insights from your data

Feedback lets you understand what your customers truly value. Solicit their ideas through surveys, reviews, and direct communication channels. 

In addition, data analytics can help you see exactly what works and what falls flat in your program. It tracks key metrics like CLV, redemption rates, and engagement levels. Use these insights to tweak your offerings and personalize rewards based on each customer base’s behavior and preferences.

3. Define your objectives

Your loyalty program’s objectives ensure that each reward contributes to attaining your bigger goals. Specify your target goals, whether it’s increasing customer retention or boosting sales.

Review your current reward offerings and assess how well they support these goals. Suppose your initial objective is to boost customer retention, but you notice that reward redemption rates are low. You can adjust your reward structure to include more experiential rewards or exclusive perks to pique more interest.

4. Analzye competitors and position yourself strategically in-market

Your competitors can overlook market gaps — and that’s where you come in. Study their offerings, including their reward types, pricing strategies, and program features. Recognize their shortcomings and make them your strengths.

Let’s say your findings show competitors lack flexibility in redeeming rewards. In this instance, having multiple redemption channels (e.g., online, in-store, and mobile) can help make your program stand out in a crowded market.

3 examples of successful rewards pricing structures

Check out these three brands that have captivated customers and driven business growth through their loyalty programs. Here are their real-world success stories:

American Airlines

The American Airlines AAdvantage® program offers elite status to frequent flyers with exclusive privileges such as priority boarding, systemwide upgrades, and extra baggage allowance. AAdvantage members can also earn bonus miles with partner airlines with every purchase using any Citi®/AAdvantage® Aviator® credit card.

Anyone can enroll with no annual fee, suggesting that value-based pricing can be as profitable as cost-based pricing. The AAdvantage® program’s longevity speaks volumes about its success. The increased engagement and revenue from more airline bookings and card purchases outweigh the reward costs, resulting in a favorable bottom line.

Neal's Yard Remedies

After decades of successful sales, Neal's Yard Remedies wanted to take the next step. It was time to undergo a digital transformation to offer a truly omnichannel experience. Unfortunately, their old POS was complicated to use and lacked an open API. Neal’s Yard Remedies wanted to find a POS and loyalty solution that worked seamlessly with their ecommerce platform to deliver that omnichannel experience.

Now, Neal’s Yard Remedies run an easy-to-use loyalty program across all their sales channels. It’s clear how to earn points, and there are multiple ways to earn. For a purchase, their points to spend ratio is set at 5:1 (customers earn 5 points when they spend £1). They’ve opted for a simple framework for rewards too: 500 points are worth £5.

Alpha60 

Alpha60 takes a different approach. Brand Manager Kelvin explains that Alpha60's loyalty program is about 'surprise and delight', rather than a promotional tool used to incentivize sales.

As part of the customer-first approach, ALPHA60 decided to make the loyalty program as simple as possible. Spend a thousand dollars, get a thousand points (a 1:1 points-to-spend ratio), get a $50 voucher.

“We try not to complicate it too much and add different things in, and that really works for us. I think it’s because it’s simple for people. It’s easy for customers to understand.” Kelvin believes simplicity helps customers get more invested with their points: they always know when they have a voucher ready to redeem.

Challenges in pricing rewards

The most common types of loyalty rewards include:

• Percentage-based discounts
• Fixed dollar discounts
• Free shipping
• Free products
• VIP experiences

Each ​​loyalty program reward has its cost implications. For instance, percentage-based discounts work well with price-sensitive customers or low average order values. They encourage larger purchases or more frequent visits, although they could hurt your bottom line if applied to high-value items.

If shoppers mostly have higher and varying average order values, setting fixed dollar discounts on specific thresholds or repurchase intervals can make pricing predictable.

E-commerce and online businesses benefit from free shipping because it eliminates potential barriers to online purchases. But you’ll have to set an average order value before you hand it off to your customers. Otherwise, it’ll erode your profits.

Offering free products or samples can boost product discovery and your loyalty program's perceived value. But like free shipping, the total cost shouldn't exceed the incremental revenue or engagement they generate.

VIP access or experiential rewards are an excellent option for building a loyal customer base. It helps enhance brand trust and differentiation by fostering a sense of belonging among top-tier loyalty members. To ensure profitability, only offer this reward when increased engagement and CLV can justify the expenditure of delivering such experiences.

Here’s a table to simplify your comparison:

To minimize costs while maintaining attractive rewards, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Spread your investment across multiple reward types to target diverse audience segments. It won’t alienate customers who may not prefer a particular reward type. If you still can’t decide, talk to an expert for tailored advice.

Free Download: PDF and calculator for structuring your points and rewards

For more loyalty program optimization insights and tools, download our new PDF and calculator on pricing points and rewards. 

Notable trends in loyalty rewards

60% of brands claim experiences are indispensable for their success. Consider delivering experiential loyalty program perks they can’t get elsewhere to drive stronger brand advocacy.

Cutting-edge AI and analytics tools are another innovation that can help refine your reward pricing strategies. With online shopping, AI algorithms can track the most viewed, added to cart, and purchased products. Understand these patterns to maximize your pricing strategy on popular items.

Businesses also gather and analyze customer data in real time, urging more personalization and dynamic pricing. That way, you can streamline the redemption process with reward recommendations or one-click redemption. Implementing dynamic pricing could mean offering personalized discounts or bonuses tailored to individual customer profiles.

With so many emerging trends, it can be difficult to know where to begin. So, start with investing in the right loyalty software to harness these innovations and create highly effective reward systems.

Optimize your loyalty program today

Well-priced rewards inspire more loyal customers, reduce churn rates, secure repeat business, and differentiate your brand. All these benefits rely on how you calculate loyalty points and manage reward offerings.

With smart loyalty software like Marsello, customer-centric rewards with consistently high ROI are now more feasible than ever. Here’s our detailed guide to building a loyalty program that resonates with your audience.

Get advice from a loyalty expert and start driving repeat sales.

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

“Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

If you’re running a small- to medium-sized business, you may be asking yourself this question when calculating how much it costs to acquire and keep your customers. For retailers – where profit margins often run thin and every customer counts, increasing the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is one of many levers you can pull to create loyalty and ensure repeat business.

What is Customer Lifetime Value?

Customer Lifetime Value is the metric used to calculate how much revenue or profit your business will generate during the amount of time your customer shops with you (customer lifetime). 

How do I calculate Customer Lifetime Value?

While having a clear, single answer to this question would be great, there is more than one answer on how to calculate CLV, and methods range from the most foundational to more complex calculations. 

The simplest way to measure customer lifetime value is to subtract your lifetime customer costs from lifetime customer revenue. Here’s what the formula looks like:

CLV = Lifetime Customer Revenue - Lifetime Customer Costs

For instance, if a business has a subscription service charging $100 monthly, with customers staying for 3 years, the Lifetime Customer Revenue is $3600 ($100 * 36 months). Assuming Lifetime Customer Costs are $600, the CLV is calculated as:

$3600 - $600 = $3000

This means each customer's net value to the business over their lifetime is $3000.

There are other ways to measure customer lifetime value. So if you want more in-depth information on calculating CLV, check out this article and try our Customer Lifetime Value calculator.

How do I increase Customer Lifetime Value?

After you calculate your baseline CLV, it’s time to pull the levers to increase it. Here are some tips to do just that.

1. Enhance your customers' experience

Increasing customer retention requires understanding the customer journey and making personalized recommendations. Delivering a better customer experience than your competition is a surefire way to reduce your customer churn rate and build loyalty. 

There are critical metrics to gather regarding customer satisfaction, including your Net Promoter Score (NPS). This information highlights areas of opportunity and gives your team a chance to rectify poor experiences before they become bad reviews.

In addition, personalized marketing campaigns are important to increase customer engagement. That’s why segmentation is key. There are several ways to segment customers to better direct your marketing efforts, and understanding the customer journey, pain points, checkout experience, behavior, and other customer data metrics are the foundation of your customer segments. Consider how much your customer spends, their buying patterns, engagement with social channels, and more. 

Creating a community of long-term, loyal customers who organically spread word-of-mouth referrals is an effective way to increase CLV.

Marsello customer, Pace Athletic, created their community by focusing on customer relationships, having an inclusive and welcoming environment, hosting a regular running club, and implementing a loyalty program with a referral rewards program. This strategy creates more touchpoints, listens to and incorporates customer feedback, and leverages customer loyalty programs – all of which lead to more conversions.

2. Implement cross-selling and upselling tactics

Another way to increase customer lifetime value is to point shoppers to products or services that add value to their purchases. You can do this through upselling and cross-selling. When done right, these sales tactics boost customer spending and AOV, ultimately helping you increase customer lifetime value. 

The retailer Scotty's Makeup & Beauty, for example, has a section on their product page recommending similar or complementary items. That way, when you view one of their products, you are also presented with items that enhance your purchase. 

Aside from driving additional sales, this practice improves the overall shopping experience by making it easier for customers to find and acquire everything they need in one place.

3. Create a customer loyalty program to increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Offering incentives and perks in a customer loyalty program is often successful in reducing customer attrition, boosting repeat purchase rate, and creating long-term customers. The best loyalty program for you will depend on your pricing, business type, and if you are looking for omnichannel support.

There are four main types of loyalty programs: 

• points systems
• tiered programs
• punch cards
• community-based incentives 

With points systems, customers earn points for every dollar they spend, which can be redeemed for products or services. Tiered loyalty programs are based on engagement or spending; the higher the tier, the more exclusive the reward. With punch cards, customers receive punches or stamps for purchases, with a reward once the card is filled. Community-based incentives are based on activities that help grow your brand and include activities like social sharing.

When thoughtfully created, rewards and recognition for customer loyalty can make a significant impact on your bottom line. 

"On average, transactions made by loyalty members are worth over 60% more than anonymous transactions. Imagine even just 5% of your customer-base joins your loyalty program, and spends 60% more per transaction. Think what that would do to your bottom line."

- Rory Moss, Loyalty Expert

And if you’re implementing personalized marketing efforts, personalized rewards are the next logical step. A successful rewards program often drives repeat business with exclusive offers, like VIP tiers and omnichannel support to keep your customers coming back, referring others and thus increasing their CLV.

Once your loyalty program is created, the work is far from over. You have a wealth of data at your fingertips, and using those data-driven insights to adjust your program is key. Offering rewards that resonate with your customer’s preferences and shopping behaviors is the art and science of personalized marketing campaigns and loyalty programs – and our customers see great success in this holistic approach.

Marsello customer, TennisGear, now has complete visibility into their sales across all channels through multi-site reports and easy-to-use dashboards. TennisGear experienced a 2.5% increase in their customer database soon after implementing a point of sale system that prompts staff to add customers to the loyalty program.

But the work didn’t stop there. With Marsello’s automation capabilities, TennisGear is seeing success in recovering abandoned carts and incentivizing lost customers to return and complete their purchase. Together, Marsello works with TennisGear to create a loyalty program that sets them apart from the competition and seamlessly integrates with their other systems.

"I think Marsello is the only solution that we found that had a native integration between all the systems that we are using. Now we can really easily separate our in-store and our online customers. In terms of loyalty, campaigns, and everything, it's certainly the best solution that we found," highlights TennisGear Project Manager, Declan.

4. Send strategic email marketing campaigns

Your customers receive dozens of emails, if not more, every day, and rising above the noise requires strategic planning. To save small marketing teams from being bogged down by the complexity of email marketing, content marketing, and the like, automation is key and optimization is the goal.

From the initial welcome email onboarding process to abandoned cart emails and win-back campaigns, being intentional and targeted in your communication is key. Automated emails tailored to customer behavior and buying patterns helps nurture customer relationships. 

To do this, the aforementioned segmented email campaigns based on customer shopping patterns and preferences provide a customized feel and increase open rates, engagement and then ultimately, CLV. Depending on your business, mixing up personalized recommendations with related products, offering abandoned cart discounts, providing relevant content marketing materials with insights, tips, early access, etc., all work in tandem to create a strategic marketing campaign that works for you. 

At Scott’s Makeup & Beauty Supply, their brick-and-mortar and online store marketing efforts are tracked to view where they’re having success. Their pre-built automations help recover more abandoned carts, drive repeat purchases and win back lost customers. With Marsello, they can see their email campaigns generate 63% of all revenue attributed to marketing activities, delivering on the metrics that matter.

5. Proactively collect customer feedback—and act on the insights

One of the best ways to get customers to stay with your brand is showing them that you value their input. And to do that, you need to get better at collecting — and acting — on their feedback. 

Regularly send out surveys to glean insights into customer satisfaction. Ask shoppers what they love most about your brand, whether they would recommend you to their friends, and what you can do to serve them better. 

You should then use those insights to improve your products and services. For example, when customers told the apparel retailer Klassy Network that they wanted long sleeved tops with built-in bras, the brand listened and launched those styles. 

Klassy Network sent out an email with the subject line “You Asked… We Listened,” highlighting how customer feedback directly influenced their latest product offering.

As for how to collect feedback, the best way to do it is put the process on autopilot. Use marketing automation software to send out surveys and feedback requests after each purchase.

We can see this in action in the fashion store Katie Waltman, which uses Marsello to automate feedback collection. 

After loyal customers collect points, Katie Waltman's team sends an automated email to show their points balance and asks for feedback on their purchase experience through a simple survey.

Katie Waltman's customers are eager to give feedback, with the jewelry brand receiving a 97% positive rate, especially for product quality, customer service, and value.

6. Encourage subscriptions

Subscriptions turn one-time shoppers into long-term customers, which then increases CLV. Subscriptions can also stabilize your finances, because they create reliable and predictable revenue streams.

Businesses selling consumable goods like food and supplements lend themselves well to the subscription model. If you fall into this category, you can encourage subscriptions by offering discounts when customers opt for recurring purchases.

Boba Tea Protein, a site that sells fitness supplements, does exactly that. When you’re on their product page, you'll notice the one-time purchase price of their protein powder is $47.99, but if you choose a subscription, the price drops 10% to $43.19.

This approach prods people to consider subscribing, which then boosts customer retention and increases the likelihood of generating consistent revenue over time.

7. Focus on high value customers

Segment your customers based on their purchase activity, then identify those who spend the most. From there, consider creating personalized offers, rewards, and communications specifically for them to enhance their loyalty and encourage continued high spending.

This targeted approach not only maximizes your ROI from marketing and customer service, it also strengthens brand loyalty (and CLV) among your most valuable shoppers. Ultimately, concentrating on high-value customers leads to increased revenue, higher customer satisfaction, and a more sustainable business model.

8. Educate your customers on the value of your products 

People will continue buying from you for as long as they find value in your products and services. That’s why it pays to educate your customers and show them how they can get the most out of your products. 

One brand that does this well is GoPro. They have a special section on their website called “GoPro Tips,” where they provide extensive how-to videos, tips for capturing great footage, and advice on using their cameras to the fullest, helping customers maximize the potential of their products.

Final words

At Marsello, your customer success is our success – and calculating CLV is an important metric to help determine what is working and where improvement can be made. If you’re looking to achieve business growth, you need a trusted partner and a strategy in place to get where you’re headed.

Ready to learn how Marsello can contribute to your business growth goals? Get in touch to learn more.

Join a community of 5,000+ retailers building sales with Marsello's customer loyalty software

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

Fact: Loyal customers are some of your most reliable income sources during uncertain times. 

We can see this in action in some of the top brands in the market.

Starbucks, for example, was one of the companies that quickly recovered after the Great Recession. Despite the economic downturn, Starbucks continued to invest in its loyalty program, enhancing its value proposition by offering free refills, free Wi-Fi, and special offers.

Or consider Sephora, which launched its rewards program, Beauty Insider, in 2007, and has since expanded and diversified the program to include personalized offers, exclusive events, and early access to new products. Today, the majority of Sephora’s sales come from Beauty Insider members. 

All this to say that rewards and loyalty programs can unlock lasting customer retention and revenue.

But there’s a catch: you’ll only achieve these benefits if your loyalty program stands out in an increasingly competitive landscape. 

In today’s crowded market, consumers are bombarded with them left and right. That’s why we’re big believers in customization—tailoring your program to meet your target audience’s preferences and needs.

In this article, you’ll learn how to build a loyalty program that puts your audience first. We also discuss strategies for creating a rewarding customer experience that secures repeat business.

Importance of customer insights in developing notable loyalty programs

Guesswork often influences strategies when developing loyalty programs. So before proceeding to launching or overhauling your loyalty program, make it a point to challenge your views.

Start with a hypothesis. Let’s say you assume your customers are motivated by discounts. Consider the variables that made you think this way. Is it based on sales performance? 

Next, look at your data and analyze your sales trends. What impact do discounts really have on your sales?

Maybe you discover that discounts do work, but not as much as they used to. Poring over customer insights may show you that many of your customers favor tangible freebies, such as complimentary samples.

In this instance, you may need to discard your original hypothesis. Markets adapt, and customer preferences shift. Use your assumptions as a framework, but refer to actual insights as you tailor your loyalty program accordingly.

Loyalty expert Rory Moss talks about getting data & survey results to customize your loyalty program and appeal to higher value customers.

Benefits of insight-driven customer loyalty programs

Learning to fine-tune your customer loyalty programs directly translates to concrete benefits for your business. These include.

• Higher customer engagement. By basing loyalty programs on real insights, you can design initiatives that resonate with your customer base. They’ll feel a deeper connection with the tailored rewards and incentives. The more relevant you are, the better your customer relationships will be.
• Better resource allocation. Insight-driven loyalty programs help your marketing team manage resources. You’ll avoid spending on generic incentives that may not align with customer expectations. Instead, you can direct the resources toward more enticing initiatives, maximizing the loyalty program’s long-term impact.

Customer insights ensure program success with strategic implementation. Here’s how to leverage this data to build customer loyalty programs that stand out and connect with your target demographic.

6 steps to develop a successful customer loyalty program

From getting customers on board to measuring performance, launching and managing loyalty programs take work. Follow these 6 steps below to start and gradually increase signups and engagement levels.

1. Conduct customer interviews

Shoppers stay loyal to brands that understand them. To get to know your customer base, conduct direct surveys and interviews. Talk to a sample of 10 to 20 customers in person or on the phone, varying between regulars and one time/new customers.

Regulars are the most engaged audience with repeat purchases. Use the interview to identify what they want from a loyalty program. 

One-time/new customers are not as engaged–at least not yet. Take the interview as an opportunity to learn their preferred incentives, offers, or experiences to keep them coming back

Keep the questions consistent across both groups to get a well-rounded perspective. Here’s a set of potential questions you can ask these individuals. 

• How often do you purchase from our store?

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to participate in our loyalty program?

• What types of rewards or perks would motivate you to join the program? (e.g., discounts, freebies, cashback promos, special offers, exclusive event access, early access to sales)

• How important is it for you to feel valued and rewarded for your loyalty to us?

• Do you prefer tiered membership systems or ​​points-based loyalty programs? (i.e., point-based voucher amount vs. bronze, silver, and gold tiers with more valuable rewards as you progress)

• How likely will you recommend us to others if we offer reward/referral programs?

• Are there any specific products or categories you’d like to see in the loyalty program rewards?

• What communication channels do you prefer to receive loyalty program updates and offers? (e.g., email, SMS, social media, in-store notifications)

• How do you typically redeem loyalty rewards or benefits? (e.g., online, in-store, mobile app)

• Would you be more likely to participate if the program offered early access to new product releases or exclusive benefits?

• Do you have any concerns or reservations about joining a loyalty membership program?

• How likely will you continue shopping at our store with vs. without a loyalty program?

• What additional features or benefits do you want to see in our loyalty program?

Regular and one-time shoppers have distinct preferences, motivations, and expectations. Engage with both ends of the spectrum to know what drives each group from a 360-degree standpoint. 

Pro-tip: Gather contact details, such as email addresses and phone numbers, should you require a follow-up.

2. Collate survey and feedback responses

You can also use surveys to get more quantitative data on your customers. The goal here is to organize and analyze customer feedback to identify recurring patterns. 

You can do it in a formal, informal, or a hybrid approach.

Formal surveys are recommended for large-scale operations. Here are the approaches to implementing this method for a more thorough understanding of survey responses.

• Use advanced software to categorize feedback systematically. For instance, you can implement customer feedback management platforms that tag and sort responses based on common themes.
• Statistical analysis. If you have the resources, consider applying statistical methods to identify patterns quantitatively. It involves frequency calculation of particular keywords or sentiments expressed by customers.

Informal surveys are best for small businesses with limited resources. They’re more qualitative in nature and require first-hand assessment to understand your customers. 

• Manual review. Evaluate customer comments, emails, or survey responses. The goal is to absorb the qualitative aspects that may be overlooked in strictly quantitative analysis.
• Key learnings. As you review feedback, jot down a few bullet points that summarize key learnings. These could be recurring themes, noteworthy suggestions, or significant areas of concern raised by customers.

You can also combine formal and informal approaches (hybrid) to maximize both methods’ strengths. Doing so balances qualitative findings with objective insights in a more accessible yet scalable manner.

3. Review and act on the data

Knowing what appeals to new and existing customers helps ensure your loyalty program aligns with your overall brand identity. It helps craft your Unique Value Proposition (UVP), which you can use to reinforce your brand message and create a cohesive experience across all touchpoints.

Review the preferences and needs you’ve discovered from feedback responses. Then be sure to offer customers enticing rewards to meet those needs. 

Take Amazon Prime’s paid loyalty program, for example. Industry data shows that 71.8% of its loyalty program members find the $99 annual pricing worth it for all the shipping, shopping, streaming, and reading perks. 

How does Amazon know this? Simple. The company actively creates, distributes, and collects online survey responses.

Not many businesses have the same resources as Amazon. But it doesn’t mean you don’t have enough data to analyze in your hands. 

Sports retailer TennisGear actively observes their database to understand customer behavior. They grow and keep it accurate through complete visibility across their sales channels and prompts that reminds staff to update or add customer information.

Maintaining a continuous feedback loop with your customers is key to creating a loyalty program that resonates. Send out regular surveys or perform ongoing database analysis to stay current with changing preferences and market trends.

Additional tip: Look at review sites and Google Reviews to draw information about what customers might appreciate seeing more in your programs.

4. Design and optimize the program based on feedback

Now that you know your rewards and incentives, optimize your program’s structure and mechanics to incentivize customers to spend more. 

Choose between non-tiered and tiered programs. Non-tiered appeals to a broad audience, whereas a tiered point system suits a diverse customer base with varying spending levels.

Balance the program’s exclusivity and inclusivity if you opt for the latter. Introduce exclusive high-value perks for top-tier loyalty cardholders (e.g., premium rewards, VIP events) and accessible rewards for those in lower tiers (e.g., birthday discounts).

Lastly, decide if your customers prefer simple or gamified types of loyalty programs. Gamification adds interactive elements but often requires more resources in terms of design, development, and ongoing management. 

In Sephora’s Beauty Insider Challenges, for instance, members must first complete a series of tasks to earn rewards. Some tasks don’t involve a purchase but require active engagement. The first challenges include checking out online, picking up orders in-store, signing up for text alerts, and trying Sephora’s in-store shade-matching tool.

If you’re still testing the waters, a straightforward loyalty program can be equally lucrative. 

Melbourne-based fashion label ALPHA60 exemplifies this with a simple earn-and-redeem model: spend a thousand dollars, earn a thousand points, and receive a $50 voucher.

ALPHA60’s Brand Strategist, Kelvin, explained that ALPHA60 customers prefer simplicity. Just by understanding this tendency led to the brand enjoying a high repeat purchase rate.

Find what works best for your audience, and consistently seek feedback for future adjustments if needed.

5. Make communication personalized wherever possible

Before you roll out the loyalty program, establish customer-centric communication channels. Identify where they prefer to receive updates and redeem rewards. Do they prefer traditional in-store redemption like punch cards or through handy technology like an app or a digital card?

If customers raise concerns or suggestions, acknowledge and address these in your response. Show that you value their input and actively strive to improve their experience.

A one-size-fits-all approach in communication may alienate customers who seek tailored interactions. Don’t lose your regulars to more attentive competitors. Pay attention to customer behavior when launching or announcing loyalty program updates.

6. Choose technology to run the loyalty program

Invest in user-friendly technology to simplify the implementation process. It’ll help your staff to adjust fast, minimizing the learning curve and likelihood of errors.

Loyalty program software like Marsello features seamless integration with ecommerce and POS systems (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce, Bigcommerce, and Lightspeed) to leverage data analytics.

Syncing in-store and online transactions generates insights to help you deliver consistent loyalty experiences. It’s a hands-off process you can leverage to offer custom-tailored promotions, point earning, and reward redemption across all platforms.

With the right tools, tracking your loyalty program’s performance becomes easy. Take note of the key metrics and indicators to measure in the next section.

How to Measure Your Program’s Success

Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your goals to gauge initial success. Some KPIs to consider are customer retention, referral rates, average order values (including credit card transactions), and customer lifetime value. These metrics measure the program’s overall contribution to your revenue stream.

Tracking KPIs is more efficient with Marsello’s dashboards and automated reporting. These tools feature real-time updates with charts, graphs, and other visual elements to interpret complex data patterns. You can also set up predefined schedules to receive detailed reports.

Invest in technology to keep your efforts on track. Let your staff focus on refining your marketing strategy rather than spending significant hours on data gathering and reporting.

FAQs

How can small businesses with limited resources effectively compete with larger companies in offering attractive loyalty programs?

Small businesses can level the playing field with larger companies by focusing on personalized experiences and leveraging community ties. Even with smaller budgets, they can create loyalty programs that resonate deeply with their local customer base by offering unique, personalized rewards and experiences that big chains cannot. Using social media and local events for promotion can also enhance visibility and engagement without significant investment.

What are the common pitfalls or challenges businesses face when implementing loyalty programs, and how can they be overcome?

Common pitfalls in implementing loyalty programs include failing to understand customer needs, overcomplicating the rewards system, and lack of promotion. Businesses can overcome these challenges by conducting thorough market research, simplifying participation processes, and using multiple channels to inform customers about the program. Continuously gathering feedback and adjusting the program based on customer preferences ensures it remains relevant and appealing.

How do businesses ensure the long-term sustainability of their loyalty programs?

Ensuring the long-term sustainability of loyalty programs requires continuous adaptation and engagement strategies. Businesses should regularly review and update their loyalty programs to keep them fresh and aligned with evolving customer expectations. Incorporating customer feedback, analyzing participation data, and staying informed about industry trends can help businesses adjust their offerings. Creating a community around the brand and offering exclusive, time-sensitive rewards can also maintain interest and participation over time.

Streamlining Loyalty Programs with Marsello

The best customer loyalty program prioritizes the customer experience. So, rather than rushing to launch your rewards or loyalty program, take time to solicit shopper insights, analyze data, design a responsive program, personalize communication, and use technology wisely.

Loyalty programs shouldn’t remain static. Keep ongoing customer engagement by regularly evaluating and updating your program.

If you’re ready to reward customers on their next purchase, start with Marsello’s free trial. Build your loyalty program today while synchronizing your omnichannel strategy.

Join a community of 5,000+ retailers building sales with Marsello's customer loyalty software

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

Fact: social media is a major part of the lives of today’s consumers. No matter what type of business you run or who your target market is, chances are you have customers using various social apps and platforms.

Social networks are so embedded in our daily lives that people are increasingly using apps like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to discover — and ultimately purchase — products. This is particularly true among younger consumers. Industry data shows that 55% of social media users ages 18 to 24 have purchased something through a social channel. 

Social media is clearly a solid vehicle for sales, and if you’re active on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, then you’re likely attracting customers and sales through these channels.

The question is, how many of your sales are actually coming from social media?

If you find yourself shrugging your shoulders to that question, keep reading. In this post, we’ll shed light on the key steps and best practices you must take to effectively track and measure sales you’ve generated via social media. 

By the end of this post, you’ll have a better understanding of the different ways to track sales on social, and you’ll walk away with tips and tools to do it right. 

Let’s dive in.

Quick Links:

• • • Why should you implement sales tracking on social media?
    • 5 tips for tracking sales on social media
    • Start with a plan
    • Track social media sales using a special promo code
    • Use special links and UTMs
    • Ask your customers
    • Use sales tracking tools
    • Bringing it all together
    • Marsello: All your social media marketing in one place
      
      
      

Why should you implement sales tracking on social media?

As the saying goes, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Actively implementing sales tracking on social media enables you to improve in the following ways.

You can allocate resources more effectively

Running social media accounts can take a significant amount of resources. Even if you aren’t actively spending money on ads, you and your team likely devote quite a bit of time and energy planning your posts, creating content, and publishing said content on social platforms. 

Tracking your sales enables you to hone in on activities that are driving a positive ROI, so you can focus on doing more of what works. 

That way, you can ensure you’re spending more time (and money) on sales-generating activities.

It helps you refine your strategy

In addition to enabling you budget resources more effectively, tracking your sales on social media helps improve your overall marketing strategy. 

Let’s say you post a mix of Reels, Stories, and static photos on Instagram and notice that certain types of posts are better than others at generating sales. You can use that insight to create more content that resonates with your audience. 

Measuring your social media sales can also tell you which channels are effective at generating revenue. If you find that you’re getting better results on Instagram versus TikTok, for example, then you can start prioritizing Instagram in your sales campaigns.

You’ll grow your social media presence

All of the above benefits lead to a stronger social media presence overall. When you’re able to focus your efforts on the platforms and tactics that matter, you’ll naturally connect better with your audience and gain more fans and followers.

5 tips for tracking sales on social media

Now that we’ve covered the why behind social media sales tracking, let’s look at how you can go about it. Here are a handful of tips to ensure your sales tracking efforts are successful.

1. Start with a plan

It can be tempting to just start posting straight away and seeing if any sales come through, but a haphazard approach to social media tracking could lead to missed opportunities, inaccurate data, and wasted time. 

If you want to get the most out of your efforts, you need to lay the groundwork and plan accordingly. 

Here are some of the details you need to iron out before launching your social media campaigns. 

Time period. Map out the dates and times you’ll be running your campaign. This will make it easier to attribute sales that come through via social media. 

Products and assets involved in the sale. What items will you be promoting? Do you have photos and videos of those products? Make sure you have the necessary assets ready beforehand so you can launch you campaign without a hitch. 

Type of activities. Identify the specific activities or campaigns you’ll be running. Will you be working with influencers? Are you running an exclusive sale? Is it a “new arrival” type of campaign? The right method for tracking your sales will depend on the type of initiative that you’re running. 

Social networks involved. Get clear on the social network (or networks) that you’ll be using. If you’re leveraging multiple platforms, you’ll need to tailor your efforts accordingly. 

Resources spent. It also helps to track the time and money you’ve spent on your campaigns. Doing so will enable you to measure your social media ROI and determine whether or not the campaign is worth the effort and resources spent.

2.Track social media sales using a special promo code

A good way to measure social media sales is to use a dedicated promo code. This tactic is best used when you’re running a sale or partnering with an influencer to promote your products. 

To implement this tactic, come up with a promo code that’s unique to a particular campaign or influencer and make sure the code isn’t used on other channels. These codes should be fairly easy to generate and track if you have the right ecommerce platform or marketing solution. 

Once you launch your campaign, start looking out for transactions that contain the promo codes you created and use that data to track your sales. 

We can see this in action in Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener, a company that makes sugar-free sweets. Lakanto teams up with influencers like Nicole Cogan (@nobread on Instagram) to promote its products. 

To attribute sales generated through this partnership, a specific promo code (i.e., “NOBREAD”) is used, and Nicole’s followers will get a discount when they enter the code at checkout. Meanwhile, Lakanto can track sales that resulted from the campaign by taking note of how many people entered the promo code on its website.

Promo codes are simple and easy to use (both for customers and the merchant). Just bear in mind that these codes also have some shortcomings. 

For starters, promo codes may not always paint an accurate picture of sales. 

If someone sees your product on social media but doesn’t use the code at checkout, then your system won’t be able to properly attribute that transaction. 

In addition, if one of your brand partners decides to share their promo code outside of social media (e.g., their blog or during an in-person interaction) then this may distort the data around social media attribution. 

Also, you can only use promo codes as a tracking tool if you’re running a sales or promotion. Customers typically expect discounts when entering a code at checkout, so if you aren’t running a sale, then you can’t really use promo codes as a tracking tool.

3.Use special links and UTMs

If you’re using Google Analytics to measure your web traffic, then UTMs (Urchin Traffic Monitor) can help you see which sources or campaigns are driving traffic to your site. 

UTMs make use of parameters like website source, medium, and campaign to pinpoint where your visitors are coming from. These UTMs come in the form of special tracking codes that you attach at the end of a URL.

They look something like this:

https://www.example.com?utm_source=social-media&utm_medium=instagram&utm_campaign=holiday-products

In the example above, the source of traffic is social media, the medium is Instagram, and the campaign is holiday products. 

When you log into Google Analytics, you’ll be able to drill down on how many visitors are attributed to these parameters. 

You can generate a UTM by heading to Google’s Campaign URL Builder. Just fill out the required fields and the tool will generate the link for you. You can then use that special URL in your corresponding campaigns and then start tracking.

If you aren’t using Google Analytics, you can opt for personalized social links instead. 

Marsello enables you to create a custom “link in bio” page that you can include in your social media profiles. You can then track the number of people who clicked on the link to determine how many followers visited your site.

Links and UTMs allow you to measure page visits without the use of a promo code, so they can be helpful tracking tools when you’re not running a promotion. 

However, one limitation of UTMs and links is they only track page visits, not sales or conversions. They can tell you how many people landed on a page and where they came from, but they won’t show you how many users completed a purchase — unless you’re using a tool like Marsello to track the entire buying journey.

4. Ask your customers

You can glean social media sales intel simply by asking your customers. At the checkout page, add a form field asking shoppers where they heard about you, and then have them select from a range of options. 

From there, tally up the number of people who selected social media (or a specific social network — i.e., Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.) and use that information to track your sales.

This tactic is easy to implement, but it also has some downsides. For one thing, having an extra form field on the checkout page adds friction to the buying experience and may turn off some customers. 

Additionally, some shoppers may opt to skip the question, so won’t be able to capture all the data you need.

5. Use sales tracking tools

While you can certainly track sales manually — i.e., by counting promo codes or tallying survey results by hand — these processes are cumbersome and can lead to human error and inaccurate data. 

You’re far better off measuring social media sales with tools that can automate the process. Marsello, for example, streamlines social media sales tracking by connecting your POS and ecommerce sales data with your social media accounts. 

From there, Marsello attributes a percentage of your revenue to a social media post containing a tagged product, UTM, or promo code.

Here’s how it works:

• Connect your social media accounts to your POS or ecommerce platform.
• Create posts across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok then tag your products.
• Use Marsello track and measure sales for a given time period.

Bringing it all together

You and your team likely spend a great deal of time and energy on social media, so you must ensure your efforts are put to good use. The best way to do that is to actively track your social media sales, so you can refine your efforts accordingly. 

Need help doing just that? Marsello Social provides you with tools to easily publish social media content and track sales.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend is coming up fast (just where did 2022 go?) It’s high time for brands to begin planning for this massive, revenue-generating shopping event.

179.8 million unique shoppers shopped in-store and online during the BFCM holiday weekend in 2021, despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With 2022 seeing record rates of inflation and more cautious consumer spending, brands will need to pull out all the stops to wow customers this holiday season.

Although still associated with shoppers streaming into store locations, BFCM weekend is becoming increasingly digital and mobile-first. According to Nosto, mobile outperformed desktop at 69% versus 31% when it came to product discovery and browsing, where social media emerges as a key channel. In fact, 54% of Gen Z shoppers and 58% of Millennials say that social platforms are better than online search for finding products and brands.

In sum, a robust social media strategy is now essential for a profitable BFCM weekend.

We’ve put together a list of the top social media planning practices your brand should follow to attract and retain customers this holiday season — and how Marsello’s brand-new social media toolkit can help.

Quick Links:

• • • Use data to inform your BFCM initiatives and planning
    • Iron out the BFCM promotions you’ll be running
    • Create compelling images
    • Use a calendar to track and schedule your BFCM content
    • Keep your marketing collateral organized
    • Keep your BFCM initiatives consistent across all platforms
    • Leverage built-in social selling features
    • Final words
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      
      

1. Use data to inform your BFCM initiatives and planning

Not sure where to begin with your social media planning? A good place to start is to look into what strategies worked for your brand last year — and what didn’t. 

Social media metrics such as engagement, impressions, click-through rate, website traffic, and conversion rate will help you to gauge the performance of previous initiatives and where you can build on this success. Likewise, learning from past mistakes, such as posting at the wrong time of day for your audience, is one of the best ways to set yourself up for a profitable BFCM period.

Using Marsello, look back on what kinds of posts generated the most sales over past campaigns.

In addition to using your own data, don’t ignore the power of industry trends. Knowing what’s hot with social media users is a great way to stay innovative and serve up the content consumers want to see. 

For example, short-form video is gaining traction across all social platforms in 2022, with 26% of social media marketers investing more in short-form video than any other content format. If your target customer belongs to the Gen Z demographic, this should definitely be in your BFCM toolkit.

2. Iron out the BFCM promotions you’ll be running

Running seasonal promotions is an essential part of BFCM, and your followers will expect you offer some compelling deals and discounts throughout the weekend. To maximize engagement with your social content, make sure you’ve planned out all the core details of your promotions, such as:

The type of content. Are you using a single image, carousel, or video to publicize your promotion?

The type of promotion. The size of the discount/offer, what products are included/excluded, etc.

Length/timing of the promotion. How long the promotion is valid and whether you might extend it to increase conversions

However, be careful not to make your social media feeds too promotion-heavy. Constantly pushing discounts over BFCM weekend can become boring and repetitive for your followers. Consider mixing up your feed with other types of content and putting aside some time to plan out your content streams. This includes promotional offers, gift inspo, and user-generated content.

Starbucks is a great example of a brand that posts a careful mix of content during and in the lead-up to BFCM. In addition to posting about their seasonal drinks range and limited-edition holiday cup promotions, its social media feeds also include user-generated content and question prompts designed to encourage engagement.

3. Create compelling images

Consumers’ newsfeeds and inboxes are being inundated by promotions and discounts during BFCM weekend, trying to persuade them to drop everything and shop right now. But don’t join the race to the bottom by choosing the steepest discount possible; focus on creating eye-catching visuals that entice consumers to stop scrolling and check out your offer.

To tap into those short attention spans, your images need to have a “wow factor” that’s pleasing to look at and primes people to explore what you have to offer.

Known for its stunning social media feeds, Anthropologie does a great job at putting its followers in the mindset of holiday shopping ahead of BFCM. This fun visual swipe post allows Anthropologie fans to “turn on” the Christmas lights at one of their flagship stores — a clear sign of more holiday-themed content to come.

4. Use a calendar to track and schedule your BFCM content

It can be tempting to post all your social media content on the fly. But while there’s room for spontaneity in your content (for example, jumping on a trend while it’s still viral) you don’t want to leave your BFCM content to chance. 

Peak season is a busy time for brands, and it’s time-consuming and stressful to plan and post content as you go. More importantly, a scattergun approach also runs the risk of missing key promotional opportunities during Thanksgiving weekend.

Using a calendar tool is a great way to maintain control over your BCFM social media planning. Marsello allows you to add individual social posts to your calendar and add relevant information such as launch dates, copy, or associated promotions, ensuring that your team always knows what’s in the pipeline.

5. Keep your marketing collateral organized

BFCM is one of the biggest revenue-producing periods of the year for retailers, so your business is likely to be using more social media collateral in the form of graphics, videos, and product photography during this period to increase engagement. 

With so much revenue on the line, it’s vital to make sure your marketing team has a system to store and organize these assets. After all, nobody wants to lose a vital photo or video right before posting!

The Marsello media library is an excellent way to keep all of your BFCM collateral in one place where it’s easily accessible to your team. The media library connects seamlessly with all major storage systems, including Google Drive and Dropbox, so you can retrieve your assets as you need them for emails, social media, and other campaigns being run by Marsello.

6. Keep your BFCM initiatives consistent across all platforms

If you’re planning on running a big promotion (or several) over BFCM weekend, it makes little sense to only publicize your offer on a single platform. To drive as much traffic as possible to your website and storefronts, all of your marketing channels — including social media, email, and even your store signage — need to be working together in harmony. 

It’s easy to say that the more channels you use, the stronger your promotional strategy will be. But it’s not quite that simple; more channels also means more time spent making sure that your messaging stays consistent. 

Here is a great example from Sephora, which successfully reinforced last year’s Cyber Monday sale across email and social media by using the same graphic and messaging:

Marsello’s campaign calendar makes it easy to achieve coordinated campaigns like Sephora’s. Social media, SMS, and email can be planned within a single dashboard to streamline your social planning and ensure consistency across channels.

7. Optimize your BFCM social media accounts for sales by leveraging built-in social selling features

Social media is no longer simply a marketing channel designed to direct shoppers to where the action takes place. Thanks to the birth of social commerce, many platforms now boast a range of tools that enable users to purchase products directly within the app.

Social commerce has a range of benefits for both shoppers and brands during BFCM. If prospective customers see a great holiday gift option, they’re going to want to move fast. By shopping directly within an app, consumers only have to tap the product tag to be taken directly to the product page and checkout. Redirecting shoppers to your ecommerce website, where they’ll need to find the product themselves and place it in their cart, takes extra time and effort and may result in them abandoning the purchase.

In addition to speeding up the checkout process, social selling makes your product catalog easy and seamless to navigate. For example, Walmart has created a range of collections in its Instagram store to address different shopper needs:.

Collections have a ton of applications for BFCM weekend. Consider catalogs such as “‘Top holiday picks for under $30”’ or “‘red-hot Black Friday deals” to optimize your sales strategy and drive consumers toward high-value merchandise.

Final words

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are among one the most important holiday shopping weekends on the calendar, and brands need to begin their social media planning early to maximize the promotional opportunities available. By following the social media planning tips above and utilizing Marsello’s social media tools, you’ll be well-placed to make your BFCM 2022 the best yet.

There’s a popular saying that you’re only as good as your last performance, and this is certainly true for retail establishments.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have become more discerning about what businesses they support. With more information at their fingertips than ever before, shoppers spend more time researching different options.

Google Reviews have become a crucial tool for businesses to manage their reputations online. This blog will explore how businesses can manage Google Reviews and increase discovery opportunities in the search results – and how Marsello can help!

Quick Links:

• • • What are Google Reviews?
    • Why do Google Reviews matter?
    • How can retailers collect Google reviews?
    • The right way to request a Google Review
    • How should retailers respond to positive and negative reviews?
    • Final words

What are Google Reviews?

Google Reviews is a functionality embedded within Google Maps and Google My Business where consumers can publicly post reviews for establishments they’ve visited.

The purpose of Google Reviews is two-fold. They assist businesses with building a positive reputation amongst consumers while also helping individuals find suitable establishments in their local area. More than half of shoppers say they’ve used Google to discover new businesses.

Why do Google Reviews matter?

Here are some reasons you should consider leveling up your Google Reviews initiatives.

Improving your local search ranking

Google Reviews play a critical role in determining your business’s local search ranking. Local SEO helps Google match a person’s search with relevant nearby businesses (e.g., “Italian restaurants in New York City”). Ensuring a healthy supply of positive reviews increases the odds of your business coming up high in the search results.

Consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

Research shows that 84% of consumers trust reviews as much as recommendations from family or friends – this tells us that customers really do consider social proof in their purchasing decisions.

Giving customers the opportunity to provide feedback

Customers want to feel that their experiences matter. Giving them the opportunity to share what they love about your business on a public forum shows that you genuinely care and want to receive feedback – even if it isn’t always positive.

How can retailers collect Google reviews?

Are businesses allowed to ask customers for Google Reviews?

Yes, though there are some ground rules.

Google doesn’t allow businesses to pay customers for leaving reviews or “review gate” by discouraging customers from leaving negative reviews. Furthermore, you cannot use reviews left on Google for marketing purposes on other platforms, such as social media or your website.

Here are some actionable ways that your business can collect Google Reviews:

Email and SMS automated flows

It isn’t practical for your business to manually send out review requests to individual customers. Instead, you need a tool that allows you to contact customers in bulk at a time of your choosing. 

Marsello’s email and SMS automation tool enables brands to build custom email and message flows to request reviews. Marsello customer Harry & Her send automatically triggered email campaigns coupled with the Google Reviews Manager tool to build a solid review base and, in turn, boost their credibility as a retailer. Here's what they had to say about the tool:

At the POS/checkout directly after a sale

While the “right” time to ask for a review will depend on your business, products, and customers (more on this below), striking while the iron is hot is usually the best way to get customers to leave reviews. In-store visitors have the chance to form a relationship with sales associates during the shopping experience, which can make customers more responsive to review requests. Consider speeding up the process by having a QR code at the checkout that directs customers straight to your review page.

When a sale is completed during a promotion

It’s always a good idea to ask for reviews while your brand is hosting a sales promotion. When customers have gotten a great deal from your business, they’re more likely to have a favorable impression and leave a positive Google review.

For example, if your brand runs a flash sale for 24 - 48 hours, you can set up an automation flow that sends a review request to a specific segment of customers (i.e., those who placed an order during your flash sale). By using Marsello’s customer segmentation, your business can solicit reviews from customers who are most likely to engage and give glowing feedback.

When customers join the loyalty program or progress tiers

Loyalty reward programs can act as their own form of customer segmentation. The shoppers who join your program are usually those already loyal to your brand, meaning they’re also more likely to leave reviews.

Brands have multiple opportunities to target loyalty program customers, such as when they sign up, redeem a loyalty reward, or progress to a new loyalty tier. These touchpoints are a great time to ask for a Google Review and show members that you care about their experience.

You can also take this a step further like Marsello-powered pet boutique Smack Bang by offering loyalty points in exchange for leaving a product review on the product listing itself. With custom automations, it’s easy to create an automated campaign that is triggered when customers leave a positive product review. Product reviews provide a great opportunity to encourage your customers to leave a Google Review about your business.

Promote/encourage reviews on social media

Cross-channel promotion is a critical part of collecting Google Reviews. In addition to asking customers for reviews in-person or via email and SMS, you should put out a call on your social channels asking customers to share their experiences.

It’s important to note that Google does not allow you to use reviews as advertising collateral on other platforms. But there are some less direct ways to achieve this.

Thai restaurant Chat Thai has a collection of reviews on their Instagram account created from photos and videos they have been tagged in. Consider resharing user-generated review content to steer customers towards leaving Google Reviews.

Make your Google My Business page easy to find and direct customers there

Customers won’t leave Google Reviews if your Google My Business page is difficult to find. Some of your customers may never have left a Google Review before. When making review requests via email and SMS, ensure you provide a link to your Google My Business page. Also, consider adding a review page to your website so that you can direct customers to your Google listing.

The right way to request a Google Review

We’ve gone over some of the best ways to collect Google Reviews. But when is the best time to request a review?

It can be a tricky balance to get the timing of requesting reviews right. If you leave it too long, your customer’s experience will be less fresh, which could affect the quality of their review. But asking too soon risks annoying your customer, especially if their order hasn’t arrived yet.

You should also factor in different customer segments. Some of your loyal customers may be more eager to submit reviews straightaway, while those who are new to your business may need some time before they’re ready to leave feedback.

Marsello’s SMS and email automations allow businesses to automate the process, segment customers, and ensure communications are sent at the optimum time to encourage positive reviews.

It’s also easy to combine automated campaigns with other review collection methods. For example, a restaurant can prime diners by asking them in person to leave a review and following up by sending an automated email reminder the following day.

How should retailers respond to positive and negative reviews?

Managing positive reviews is simple enough – simply thank your customer for their feedback and say you hope you’ll see them again soon. But what if their experience was less than positive?

No business wants to receive a bad review. But the most important thing to remember about Google Reviews is whatever you say (or don’t say) is there for potential customers to see. How you respond affects the customer who left the review and onlookers who make decisions based on the reviews left about your business and how you choose to respond. 

If you receive a negative review, always thank the person for their review. Take the time to investigate the issue to find out what went wrong so you can explain in your response. Most importantly, tell your customer the steps you will take to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Consider offering them a discount for their next visit to encourage them to return and see the changes you’ve made; this puts the ball back in their court and shows onlookers that you have made a serious effort to resolve the issue.

In some cases, it may help get more information from the customer. In this case, you can respond by encouraging them to tell you more about their experience. As always, it’s best to stay courteous by thanking the customer for their feedback and empathizing with them. 

Check out this example from Romano's Macaroni Grill.

Final words

Google Reviews can feel like a business’s best friend or worst enemy. Using a tool like Marsello to support your Google Review strategy enables you to streamline Review management and ensure that you’re sending the right response at the right time to foster customer loyalty.

By taking a responsive and automated approach to Google Reviews, your business can proactively enhance its reputation and build stronger relationships with customers – one review at a time.

If you’re searching for a product or service online, do you read a review or two before clicking “book” or “purchase”? If so, you aren’t alone: 93% of consumers say that online reviews influence their purchasing decisions, while 70% of people will only use a business if it has a star rating of four stars or more.

But it’s no longer enough to list a review or two on your website and call it a day; today’s customers want to see a large amount of social proof before they trust a business. In fact, 54.7% of consumers read at least four product reviews before making a purchasing decision.

So, what does this mean for businesses?

It means that you need an ongoing source of positive Google customer reviews to maintain a strong customer acquisition rate. In this post, we’re going to explain how you can get more Google reviews with ease – with a little help from Marsello.

Quick Links:

• • • Why Google business reviews are essential for any business
    • Why frequent positive reviews are essential for good SEO
    • How Google My Business reviews work
    • How to use Marsello’s Google Reviews Manager
    • How to use Google Reviews to increase brand awareness
    • Final words
      
      

Why Google business reviews are essential for any business

With a whopping 92.6% of all search queries going through Google as of June 2021, it’s no secret that Google business reviews are some of the most valuable. 

When Google is the one-stop shop for consumers searching for everything from hairdressers to restaurants, you need to ensure that you’re at the top of those search results. Otherwise, your business is practically invisible to potential customers. And if they can’t see you, they’re not going to click through to your website.

By managing Google reviews more effectively, you can make your business more visible – all thanks to something called local SEO.

Why frequent positive reviews are essential for good SEO

Local SEO focuses on optimizing a business’s online presence to assist nearby consumers in finding it more easily in search. If a consumer is showing search intent for a particular product or service, Google’s algorithm matches that search query with relevant businesses close to where the person is located.

For example, if you’re a restaurant in Manhattan, your target audience is likely to be people who are living or visiting in that area. So, if a person searches for “best restaurants in Manhattan” you want your establishment to be as high as possible in those results. 

According to Moz’s State of Local SEO Industry Report 2020, 90% of search experts believe that review activity is “moderately important” or “very important” in determining local SEO, while 78% agree that Google has become the new homepage for businesses. As such, Google reviews are a fantastic tool to boost local search presence – if you do it right.

How Google My Business reviews work

To start collecting Google reviews, you need to either claim or set up a Google My Business listing. This is a free tool offered by Google that allows businesses to manage their presence on the search engine. In addition to reviews, Google My Business listings can also include information such as:

• • • Opening hours
    • Address/Contact details
    • Menus
    • Booking widgets 
    • Photos of your establishment

It’s important to make an effort to fill out as many parts of your profile as possible, as a comprehensive listing will help to boost your local ranking. 

Check out the listing of the restaurant Chat Thai, which has a number of locations across Australia. All of Chat Thai’s Google listings are fully populated; you can view key business details and contact info, as well as photos and reviews. There’s even an “Order Online” button that lets customers order straight from Google.

Once Google My Business is set up and optimized, you’re ready to start driving review activity.

This is where Marsello’s Google Reviews feature comes in.

How to use Marsello’s Google Reviews Manager

By integrating your Google My Business account with your Marsello marketing, you can easily generate new reviews through automated email and SMS campaigns. 

Here’s how it works: connect your Google My Business account to Marsello, then enable automated email or SMS flows to encourage people to leave a review. You can customize your email flow with segmentation rules to ensure that you’re engaging the right customers. For instance, you can configure the workflow to only ask your “Best” customers for a review after they purchase. 

Note that Google Reviews workflows will only be triggered after someone places an order, so you can guarantee the authenticity of your business reviews.

Finally, it’s easy to track the success of your review automations. And when you receive a review, you can respond to your customers in-app, reward them with loyalty points to say thank you, or email the customer directly – manage reviews your way! 

Get in touch with our team to book a demo and learn more.

How to use Google Reviews to increase brand awareness

Before the web existed, businesses and hospitality establishments had to rely on being as visible as possible to attract foot traffic. Everything from flyers and store signage to branded shopping bags have been valuable tools to help businesses increase brand awareness.

This principle is no different online. Your business needs to take up as much “space” as possible to become known and recognized by as many customers as possible in such a competitive environment. 

In a time where digital marketing can feel increasingly like a pay-to-play model where only the biggest budgets see results, Google reviews offer a way for less-established businesses to level the playing field. By getting more reviews on Google, you’ll stand out over bigger but less-reviewed competitors.

How to encourage customers to leave positive reviews

It’s easy to assume that customers will shout from the rooftops when they have a stellar experience at your establishment. But this isn’t the case in reality; less than 50% of customers (47%) say they don’t post negative or positive reviews online at all.

There are a variety of reasons for this. A lot of us are busy and forget to write a review. Many businesses don’t make it easy or intuitive to leave reviews. If we’ve written reviews in the past and haven’t gotten a response, we might decide it’s not worth the effort.

By this point, you’re probably asking: How can I get more Google reviews for my business? Continue the following top tips:

Prompt for reviews after purchases with automated emails and SMS

The first step to getting customers to leave reviews? Strike while the iron is hot.

Businesses want to create balance by asking for reviews while a customer’s experience is fresh – this can be tough to coordinate if your establishment asks for reviews manually. 

Moreover, sending out individually-written emails or SMS is a massive drain on your time. To make asking for reviews as painless as possible, consider investing in marketing automation software that can handle review requests on your behalf.

Marsello’s automated email and SMS campaign tool enables businesses to send and manage review requests via a straightforward interface. Set the ideal time for your messages to go out to customers and even automate the sending of follow-up messages to give you another shot at securing positive reviews.

Make an effort to respond to customer feedback

Getting more customers to leave reviews isn’t just about how you ask for them, but how you choose to respond when you receive them. 

In fact, 89% of consumers read a business’s responses to reviews during the consideration stage. Why? Because how an establishment engages with positive and negative reviews tells potential customers a great deal about how that business treats its patrons.

Suppose a customer leaves a negative Google review and that business makes no effort to respond; this could be interpreted as the company not caring about the quality of their customer’s experience, which is a massive red flag. 

Plus, if you aren’t in the habit of replying to reviews and showing that you’re listening to feedback, what incentive do customers have to put in the effort?

Restaurant and Bar, The Monday Room, has done a great job of replying to Google reviews, even thanking customers who write more detailed reviews and provide photos:

Use positive reinforcement, but don’t bribe customers

If you’re looking to shape consumer behavior in ways that are advantageous to your business, it might seem like a good idea to offer customers a discount on their next order in exchange for leaving a positive review. However, this isn’t a good long-term strategy for most businesses. 

Too many 5-star reviews on a business listing create suspicion, with studies finding that consumers were more likely to purchase a product or service when the rating is between 4.2 to 4.5 stars. You don’t want your efforts to come across as though your business is buying reviews or deleting negative Google reviews, which can cause potential customers to doubt their authenticity and can even result in your business being penalized by Google. 

It’s much better to reward customers after leaving a review to guarantee honest feedback. For example, lifestyle and clothing boutique Harry & Her rewards customers with loyalty points if they leave 4 or 5-star reviews, but they don’t actively promote this policy on any of their marketing channels. This practice increases customer satisfaction and ensures that all positive reviews are genuine. 

The team at Harry and Her was also one of the first to test Marsello's Google Reviews Manager and they've found that Google Reviews are an undeniable source of revenue growth for their business. So much so, they're not going back! Here's what they had to say about their review process and the response from customers:

"We use Marsello's Google Reviews feature to encourage customer reviews after they buy something from one of our stores. First, we send an automated SMS; then we follow that up with an email to those who have not seen the SMS campaign. It's also been exciting to see our customers respond with so many positive reviews – we now have a 5-star average across our stores!"

Final words

Managing online reviews can feel a bit overwhelming, especially if you have a brand-new Google My Business listing and gather reviews from scratch. But it’s well worth the effort to create a streamlined outreach strategy to build social proof for your business; when you have a long list of positive customer testimonials, you’re in a much stronger position to acquire new customers.

By taking advantage of SMS and email automation to coordinate review requests and communicating how feedback enhances the customer experience, you can build a lasting Google review strategy that acquires and retains loyal customers. Marsello’s Google Reviews Manager makes this easy! Book a demo to get started today.

Getting customers to pay attention to your brand is becoming more and more of an uphill battle.
Email inboxes are overflowing. Social media is saturated. Even with the right messaging and the right tools, there is sometimes too much noise to be able to stand out.

So, how can you make people actually see your marketing efforts?

Enter SMS Marketing; the marketing channel that receives some of the highest open rates and engagement.

In this post, we’ll be giving you an in-depth look at SMS marketing. You’ll learn what it is, why it works, and the best practices for developing an SMS marketing strategy that's cost-effective and boosts your bottom line.

Let's get started.

What is SMS marketing

Short Message Service (SMS) marketing is a strategy where businesses use SMS messaging to send timely and relevant short-form content directly to a customer's mobile device. 

The uses of SMS marketing span from informative (i.e. letting someone know that their order is ready for pick up) to promotional messages, like alerting customers to your latest special offer.

SMS marketing can be used for an even broader variety of purposes, such as:

• Abandoned cart notifications
• Giving out discount codes or coupons
• New products arriving in-store
• Order/shipping confirmations
• Loyalty or VIP programs
• and many more.

Because it allows for such direct and personalized brand communications, text message marketing is a fantastic tool for building customer loyalty and driving repeat purchases. It enables customers to be better informed about your brand’s activities, while also giving them the tools they need to take action quickly and effectively.

SMS Marketing: The Numbers 

Text messaging is hardly a new innovation. Mobile phones with full keyboards have been around since the late nineties. So, why is SMS marketing receiving so much hype from marketers?

Many brands worry that SMS marketing messages might come across as intrusive – but this view is not supported by consumer surveys. By the end of 2020, it’s estimated that 48.7 million consumers have willingly opted to receive SMS, while 58% say they would be happy to hear from their favorite brands multiple times per week.

Why? The answer is simple; internet-capable devices have given us unprecedented connectivity with businesses and brands. This gradual shift towards mobile eCommerce is a clear sign of our increasing desire to shop on the go; 56.7% of shoppers are now going “mobile-first”, while only 6.7% primarily use desktop for online shopping. 

56.7% of shoppers are now going "mobile-first", while only 6.7% primarily use desktop for online shopping. 

Parker Panache

Marsello customer Parker Panache intelligently used one-off SMS campaigns to build a buzz around their annual Black Friday sale, one of the biggest events in the retail calendar. In conjunction with other marketing tools, they used SMS message blasts to spread the word by taking advantage of the medium's high open rates. It certainly paid off, with their total ROI reaching 240x over the two months leading up to Black Friday.

American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle was an early adopter of SMS marketing, and this strategy has clearly paid off.In the 2015 holiday season, their "legendary gifts" campaign gave consumers the chance to win $10,000. The 12-day campaign took place across SMS, email, and social media and required customers to 'opt-in' to receive personalized URLS that directed them to their daily gift. As well as winning the grand prize, customers were also in to win exclusive discounts and perks.

These creative efforts helped American Eagle to reach more than 8 million email and SMS subscribers within the 12-day period, with a 60% SMS click-through rate.

Final words

Ambitious marketing campaigns can be challenging to coordinate for some businesses, especially due to time and budget constraints. SMS marketing is a highly engaging strategy that takes advantage of our attachment to mobile devices to deliver exciting updates in real-time. As retail grows more mobile-based, this marketing tool is only going to grow more effective at driving sales and brand awareness. Our take? The sooner you get started, the better.

A Guide to Navigating Shopper Input

Did you know that poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 billion loss by U.S. businesses every year? 

Gathering, managing, and analyzing customer feedback is a vital part of your customer success strategy, but is often neglected by businesses. In fact, a recent study by Hubspot found that 42% of businesses don't collect customer feedback at all. 

If you don't know what your customers think or want, it's impossible to put them at the center of your growth plan. That's why a robust customer feedback management strategy is the key to fostering lasting relationships with your customers.

In this post, we're going to:

• Discuss why customer feedback matters
• Identify key types of customer feedback
• Talk about how to collect, manage, and analyze customer feedback

Let’s dive in!

Why is it important to collect customer feedback? 

Let’s kick things off by discussing the benefits of having good customer feedback management practices in place. 

It helps to refine your product/service

Making the effort to collect customer feedback helps you to identify pain points, as well as gather suggestions that you can communicate to your customer success and product teams. In turn, this helps to enhance your product/service and promote a better user experience.

Essentially, any omnichannel retailer should be making the customer the focal point of their business, and collecting customer feedback will enable this process. 

It improves customer satisfaction and retention

No matter what business you run, your customers want to feel as though their experiences matter. When customer service representatives take a long time to respond to concerns – or worse, don't respond at all – this can seriously damage the customer relationship. 

On the flip side, when you make the effort to implement changes or updates on the back of feedback surveys, it showcases a customer-centric approach that aims to meet the expectations of loyal customers. And when customers are satisfied, your retention rates will soar.

It strengthens your WOM (Word of Mouth) marketing efforts

Here's a fact about marketing: We're far more likely to trust other people's perception of a business than what that business says about itself. In fact, 88% of consumers say that they trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations.

With the rise of social media and community forums, we're no longer passive consumers of advertising. By making customer feedback a core functionality of your business model, you have a powerful customer acquisition strategy.

Types of customer feedback 

Customer feedback can be divided into two main types: Direct/solicited customer feedback, and indirect/unsolicited customer feedback.

Direct/solicited customer feedback

This refers to feedback processes that rely on the business reaching out to their customers for feedback. The advantage of this approach is that businesses can either tailor their surveys to specific topics, such as the usability of certain features, or they can ask about the customer journey as a whole. However, invitations for direct feedback often struggle with low uptake.

Direct/solicited customer feedback methods include the following:

• Customer surveys
• Customer reviews
• Focus groups

Indirect/unsolicited customer feedback

Conversely, indirect/unsolicited feedback is when a customer reaches out to a business with queries or concerns. It's within a business's interest to encourage this behavior, as unsolicited feedback can often bring up issues or opportunities they wouldn't have identified on their own. 

The following can be considered types of indirect/unsolicited feedback:

• Social media
• Customer support centers
• Live chat

Note: It's a good idea to use a combination of methods to ensure that your business is getting impartial feedback data. In this next section, we're going to dive into some of these methods in more depth.

How to collect customer feedback

Now let’s look at the different ways that you can gather feedback from shoppers.

Customer surveys

Customer surveys are one of the most common methods for feedback collection. You can completely customize a survey depending on what your needs are, making it one of the best options for collecting feedback on a large scale.

However, putting together a good feedback survey is a lot of work. Once you've chosen the area that you want feedback on, you need to decide what survey format is most appropriate.

While a qualitative survey using free text fields is one of the easiest to put together, it can be a discouraging time investment for customers, and setting it up effectively could be time-consuming for you too.

Instead, you could consider using some qualitative forms of customer satisfaction survey, such as:

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

CSAT is a metric for determining how satisfied your customers are with different touchpoints in the customer journey. It captures customer sentiment when they're interacting with that stage of your offering i.e. "How would you rate your recent order or experience?"

CSATs usually give customers the choice of choosing a number between 1 and 5, with 5 being “very satisfied” and 1 being “highly dissatisfied”. CSATs can be single questions or use several back-to-back questions depending on how broad you want your survey to be.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is another qualitative survey measure but it differs from CSAT. NPS measures long-term customer loyalty. It helps to benchmark a customer's willingness to recommend/promote your brand to others, which indicates their commitment to repeat purchases. So, if your NPS is low, this means your churn rate is likely to be high.

Most NPS surveys use a 10-point scale, as shown in this template by Le Tote:

2-choice questions

In some cases, you want to make it as simple as possible for customers to provide feedback. This is why 2-choice surveys can be extremely useful when you want to gather a quick pulse from your customers. 

The following example from Katie Waltman, which lets people indicate their feedback by simply tapping a happy or sad face is an example of quick and easy feedback collection.

And in case customers would like to share additional details, Katie Waltman asks a quick follow-up question based on the shoppers’ initial response. Katie Waltman has a 97% customer feedback rating. Their customers have particularly positive feedback for KW’s product quality, customer service, and the value of their products. Keeping in mind that customers are most inclined to leave feedback when they are passionate, this makes praise that Katie Waltman has received all the more impressive.

Social media monitoring

Did you know that 1 in 3 consumers would rather post service or product feedback on social media than contact a business directly? Quick and appropriate follow-ups to comments and mentions by your customers are vital on an open forum, and also presents opportunities to ask for feedback via polls and surveys:

Qualitative customer interviews

If you're wanting more in-depth customer insights, organizing a series of interviews with customers is a great tool for adding more context to NPS and CSAT surveys. Getting direct information straight from shoppers can help to highlight and create understanding around areas that are working well, versus areas of your business that could do with attention.

This technique is best suited for interviewing long-term customers who can answer more in-depth questions about your product/service. It's a good idea to use your CRM to pick out loyal customers who can offer you the most valuable insights.

How to manage customer feedback 

Once you’ve collected a good amount of feedback, it’s best to set up processes for managing all that information so you can act on it. 

Use the right CFM tools

Feedback management tools are vital to getting the most out of your feedback collection. CFM (customer feedback management) software allows you to sort and analyze customer data effectively, rather than having your customer success team spend days or even weeks sorting through it manually.

The right tools depend on how your business plans on gathering customer feedback. For example, if you plan on doing customer surveys on a regular basis, a survey tool like SurveyMonkey or Typeform is a good investment. Likewise, you're a brand with a large social media presence, consider a social listening tool such as Brand24 that uses AI to monitor brand reputation in real-time, a popular technique with SaaS companies. 

On the other hand, if you want to grab quick feedback on the product or shopping experience of your customers, then an eCommerce CRM like Marsello is a great option. Marsello’s feedback tool makes it easy to attach quick surveys to your transactional emails so customers can let you know how they feel.

From there, you can get detailed reporting on customer satisfaction and find ways to improve. 

Implement a Voice of the Customer (VoC) program

The Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a broad term referring to all of the data and metrics you've gathered from feedback management tools and unsolicited customer feedback. A VoC program collates all this data from across channels to identify emerging themes that indicate specific pain points, then develops a roadmap to address them.

For a VoC program to work effectively, it can't be siloed just to your customer success division. It requires active collaboration with the product development, marketing, and sales teams to identify trends within their own workflows. For example, if the sales team keeps coming across a particular feature request, this can be passed onto the product team far more seamlessly.

Close the feedback loop

Once you've identified issues or opportunities and taken action in response, it's important not to miss out on informing customers what you've accomplished. This is known as “closing the feedback loop.”

Unless customers receive a follow-up, they have no idea whether their concerns have been listened to. This leaves the feedback loop wide open and could affect your retention efforts.

So, once you've decided to introduce a change in response to feedback, you need to think about the best way to communicate this. The appropriate channel will depend on the demographics of the respondents. For example, if your survey was hosted on social media, it makes sense to inform customers using the same medium. If it was an on-site survey, you could consider producing a webinar that discusses your initiatives.

How to analyze your customer feedback 

The best way to get the most out of customer feedback is to analyze it. Here are some tips to help you organize what you’ve collected and ensured that you gain actionable insights from them.

Categorize your feedback types

Once your data is in one place, assigning it to a specific group will help you get a broad overview of what areas are receiving the most attention from your customers. For example, you could use categories like:

• Onboarding
• Pricing/billing
• Feature requests
• Product/user experience
• Technical support.

You can also break these down further into sub-categories i.e. whether the feedback is negative or positive.

This exercise will help you to highlight any overarching trends and “hidden” issues that your business might not have identified, such as confusing pricing structures or difficulty finding support documentation.

Start feedback analysis

While it's possible to analyze your feedback manually, this is a very time-consuming process and requires someone with strong expertise in coding and data analysis. Moreover, there's always the potential for personal bias to get in the way of finding actionable insights from your customers.

Instead, consider using a tool such as Marsello, which can organize feedback data into graphs and tables that make it easy to analyze the information.

As patterns start emerging, it's important to ask yourself some key questions:

• Are these new or established customers?
• Where are they located?
• Who has been assigned to manage their account?

This helps to add context to the results of your analysis – and may also establish some underlying causes for recurring issues.

Present your results

Once you have the results of your customer feedback campaign, you need to think about the best way to present them to your teams. This will depend on whether you're doing a relatively focused feedback survey or a landmark study on your product/service as a whole.

If it's a small feedback project, you can likely present the results on a one-page that summarizes the key takeaways via bullet points or tables. In the case of large, multi-question studies, you will need to break this down in a lot more detail.

Large-scale data visualization using line or bar graphs are a great way to communicate to your staff the changes to customer sentiment over time and provide answers to key questions. Check out this visualization by Thematic investigating the reasons behind a drop in NPS:

Thematic not only displays the drop-in NPS rating over time but also offers the user detailed information that highlights why their performance could be taking a downward turn. 

Final words

Customer feedback has traditionally been one of the most neglected elements in customer success. It's easy for businesses to tell themselves that gathering customer feedback is too time-consuming or difficult to analyze to be worth the effort. 

But at the end of the day, customer satisfaction is the key to long-term success as a business. If your customers are unhappy with your service or product offering, your churn rate is going to skyrocket. But by implementing a strong customer feedback program, you're in a much better position to foster retention and loyalty.

Need to collect and analyze customer feedback? Marsello has powerful tools to help retailers gather input from shoppers and turn them into actionable insights. 

A Guide to Marketing Across Multiple Channels

It's one of the biggest buzzwords in retail and marketing, and one that all businesses should be paying attention to. 

Omnichannel.

Industry data shows that marketers using three or more channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those using a single-channel campaign.

With numbers like this, retailers have few reasons not to embrace the power of omnichannel marketing. 

In this post, we're going to define omnichannel marketing, why it matters, and how to implement your own omnichannel marketing strategy for better customer engagement and sales.

What is omnichannel marketing? 

Simply put, it’s a retail strategy that involves the complete integration of all offline and digital channels. It denotes a customer-centric approach by prioritizing seamless, high-touch shopping journeys that take place across multiple channels.

With seamless channel integration, customers can easily complete actions like checking inventory levels online before turning up at their local store. And it's shopping experiences like these that positively influence customer loyalty and helps to create brand advocates. 

Omnichannel marketing ensures that customers receive a cohesive shopping experience. All sales and marketing channels operate in sync with one another to build trust and brand engagement.

The difference between multichannel and omnichannel marketing

Don't confuse omnichannel marketing with multichannel marketing. 

While both involve coordinating marketing strategies that span several channels (such as eCommerce, social media, SMS messaging, and mobile apps), the execution is very different.

Multichannel puts the product, rather than the customer, at the center of marketing activities. So, while multichannel marketing allows consumers to engage a brand via several channels, they cannot transition seamlessly between them. This silos messaging and keeps it static, rather than adapting to the needs of each customer.

In contrast, the channel integration of omnichannel marketing means that every message is relevant and tailored to your individual customer as they shop across multiple channels and devices.

For example, if a customer puts an item in their cart with the intent of coming back for it later, they might receive a push notification or SMS alert to let them know when that product is low in stock. They might also get a tailored promotion to entice them to purchase. It's these personalized interactions with customers which make omnichannel marketing efforts much more successful than a generalized multichannel approach.

Why implement omnichannel marketing? 

Here’s a quick rundown of the advantages you can unlock from omnichannel marketing.

Providing a consistent experience across channels

If we think about our most negative retail experiences, they're likely to involve scenarios where retailers have obstructed rather than aided our efforts to shop efficiently. 

As consumers show a growing preference to use multiple channels to execute their shopping journeys, it's never been more important for retailers to meet these expectations. According to a study by Invespcro, the most in-demand services are: 

• • • Checking product availability before arriving in-store (82%)
    • BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick-Up In-Store) (57%)
    • Having a customer profile stored across channels (50%)
    • Personalized shopping experiences (47%)

By implementing advanced omnichannel experiences like these, your customers have the freedom to shop how they want without barriers. This makes them feel empowered during their shopping journey and helps to foster trust in your brand.

Maximizing touchpoints with your customer

In the past, we would walk into a brick-and-mortar store, browse for a bit, and then make a purchase – often within the same visit. 

Today, consumer behavior is very different. People want as much information as possible before committing to a purchase, especially if they are new customers shopping with a brand for the first time. This involves utilizing multiple channels to research and compare options.

Today, 82% of customers use their mobile devices to browse before purchasing at a physical store. By offering customers a unified experience across digital and offline channels, you can add a huge amount of value through engaging touchpoints that build brand awareness and customer loyalty.

Valuable data-driven insights

Seamless experiences across different channels mean more opportunities to gather customer data. Omnichannel integration allows you to follow the customer journey from beginning to end, meaning that you gain access to in-depth insights about who your customers are and what they're looking for. 

It allows you to identify key buying patterns and personas within your target audience – including those you hadn't anticipated shopping with your brand. This makes it easier to deliver the appropriate messaging that coaxes prospective customers along the path to purchasing.

When you understand your customers, you have a much better sense of how to encourage repeat purchases. This is why retailers who use an omnichannel approach see 90% higher customer retention can those who don't.

How to start an omnichannel marketing strategy from scratch 

Ready to kick off your omnichannel marketing strategy? Here are the steps you should take to set yourself up for success.

1. Start thinking customer-centric

Going omnichannel in your marketing is about more than just integrating your channels. For many retailers, it requires a fundamental shift in how your brand relates to its customers.

Why? Because what's most convenient for your customers might not be what's easiest for business. To make this transition effectively, you need to have everybody on board inputting customer success at the center of the shopping experience.

Making omnichannel campaigns run effectively is a lot of work, and requires serious consideration of every touchpoint within the buyer's journey. 

For example, when your customer enters your website, does it have a responsive design that easily adjusts to mobile? Are your social media posts optimized to drive prospective customers to the appropriate product pages?

By having your operations, sales, and marketing teams evaluate your marketing approach step by step, you can ensure a positive omnichannel customer experience.

2. Know who your customer is

You might be surprised by how many businesses don't have an in-depth understanding of who their customers are. A study by HubSpot found that 42% of businesses don't run customer engagement surveys or collect feedback.

This is a problem because if you don't touch base with customers and get their feedback, you won't get insights into what they want and need. Collecting feedback also helps you determine the right demographics, so you can create more effective personas for your campaigns.

To  put your customer first, you need to invest in gathering data that gives you the full picture of their activities and preferences, such as: 

• • • What problems does your business help customers to solve? 
    • Through what channels do they like interacting with your brand most, and why? 
    • Which kinds of content do they find the most useful/valuable?

You can accomplish this by using data from your CRM, or by running surveys across channels and asking for feedback at multiple points during the shopping journey. 

3.  Invest in the proper toolkit

When it comes to omnichannel marketing, your strategy is only going to be as strong as the tools supporting it. 

As well as helping you to generate and nurture more leads, marketing automation allows you to build personalized experiences for your customers by sending them targeted content that supports their needs. Best of all, the data captured from these workflows in the form of CTRs and engagement rates will tell you whether your efforts are hitting the mark.

This is where a solution like Marsello comes in handy. Our software serves as an all-in-one omnichannel marketing platform that combines email, SMS, and loyalty programs. Since everything is accessible on a single platform, data flows smoothly from one channel to the next, and it's easier to provide a seamless shopping experience no matter where your customers are. 

Marsello also integrates with leading point-of-sale systems and eCommerce platforms, so you can easily sync your physical and digital stores as one.

4. Content, content, content

No matter how advanced your marketing software is, the content remains the backbone of omnichannel marketing. This involves everything from your social media content down to in-store signage

For example, let's say that your business is running a promotion that gives your customers 20% off storewide both offline and online. Your online store has a big banner on the home page publicizing the discount, and a promotional email has been sent out to your mailing list to spread the word. 

But when customers walk into one of your physical store locations, there's no signage greeting them at the door to make them aware of the discount. 

A lack of cohesion between your offline and digital marketing efforts can result in a lot of missed sales opportunities; if in-store customers don't know about the promotion until checkout, they're a lot less likely to maximize spending to get a better deal. This makes informative touchpoints essential for successful omnichannel retailing.

Want to see an omnichannel content strategy done right? Check out Federation, a streetwear brand that runs a powerful omnichannel loyalty program. Federation allows customers to earn and redeem points in-store and online, so shoppers are rewarded regardless of where and how they're shopping. 

Plus, the program’s content and messaging are consistent on all channels, so the customer experience always feels seamless and on-brand. 

Another excellent example comes from the jewelry brand and clothing stockist, Katie Waltman. The store runs a comprehensive marketing initiative that covers loyalty, feedback collection, and email marketing. In doing so, Katie Waltman is able to connect with customers across multiple platforms. 

Just like with Federation, the content and messages that Katie Waltman puts out there are consistent on all channels and devices. So whether people encounter the brand in-store, on their eCommerce site, or via email, customers are treated to the same look and feel. 

5. Segmenting your messaging

As we mentioned above, what separates multichannel marketing from omnichannel is that customers are not treated as a one-size-fits-all group. 

The valuable data insights that omnichannel retailing gathers from across the shopping journey give you the ability to segment customers according to demographic data, shopping behavior, and the “warmth” of leads. 

According to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that offers personalized experiences. In short, you can deliver the right content at the right time to enhance customer lifetime value. 

For example, with the aid of marketing automation, you can set up specific triggers to target customers who've purchased certain items (e.g. "you might also like..." emails) or those who've been “inactive” for a certain period of time by sending an SMS with a link that allows them to set their communications preferences. 

We can see this in action in Brandini Toffee, which uses Marsello to send automated marketing emails based on user behavior. One notable example? The Brandini team sends a campaign automated email geared towards shoppers who have abandoned their cart. To entice this segment to complete their purchase, Brandini Toffee sends a reminder email with a built-in product recommendations section that is automatically populated with similar products and items which the customer is likely to enjoy (based on their previous shopping behaviors). 

Since they first created automated campaigns, Brandini Toffee has seen as much as a 583% increase in attributable sales and this campaign alone has generated 95% of the total orders generated by Brandini’s automated campaigns.

6. Track and analyze

The power of your omnichannel marketing efforts becomes more evident the longer they're in play. The more you invest in gathering and utilizing data from customer journeys, the more you can refine your approach to target exactly what it is your customers want.

This is why it's important to test and track different elements of your marketing strategy to find what appeals most to your customers. This includes A/B testing of different copy, subject lines, images, and CTAs to see which gets the best response. 

It's also important to compare your content across channels to see what works for each medium – what works on email, for example, isn't necessarily going to resonate with your audience on Instagram.

 By regularly analyzing the results of your omnichannel marketing campaigns, you can ensure that your business is using the very best formula to inform and excite your customers.

Final words

Implementing a thoughtful omnichannel marketing strategy is a big step up for retailers who are used to more siloed multichannel strategies. But if you want consumers to choose your business over the likes of Amazon, it's essential that you can facilitate seamless shopping experiences that allow customers to move between channels with ease.

At the center of successful omnichannel marketing is a core philosophy; it’s seeing your customer as the center of gravity that your brand revolves around. So long as you stick to this core idea, the rest will follow.