How to market a loyalty program effectively

1. Encourage employees to promote the program

Organizations can encourage their biggest brand advocates -- their employees -- to promote loyalty programs. Employees have personal networks of friends and family they can talk to about a new program, and they can promote the loyalty program in their daily discussions with customers.

For instance, as customer success teams onboard new customers, they can share information about the loyalty program and its benefits. Also, sales reps can promote the program before or after they make a sale to entice the customer.

2. Promote the program to existing customers

Marketing teams should promote loyalty programs to their organization's existing customer base. This audience already engages with the organization, and satisfied customers make prime candidates to market toward.

Marketers can email program announcements, benefits and offers to encourage customers to sign up. Employees, like sales reps, can also email customers they have relationships with about the program, as customers often respond to personalized emails more than generic messages.

3. Offer sign-up incentives

Just as organizations use customer loyalty programs to incentivize frequent purchases, they should offer discounts, coupons and other rewards to incentivize the sign-up process. The same incentives that drive frequent purchases can drive program enrollment.

Loyalty programs also collect customer information, such as demographic data and purchase behavior, which can help marketers personalize future promotions.

4. Use existing marketing assets to build awareness

Marketing teams can use their existing assets -- such as print collateral, emails, landing pages and company websites -- to promote loyalty programs on various channels. For instance, pop-up website ads and links in signature lines can educate customers about such programs. Marketing teams can use these assets to describe the program, how it works and how customers can join.

5. Use social media to drive engagement

Social media gives marketing teams access to a broad audience that includes prospective, existing and loyal customers. A loyalty program can encourage prospective customers on social media to make an initial purchase, especially when organizations offer a discount to sign up.

Also, social media marketing teams can use social media to market loyalty programs to existing customers, as loyal customers often follow their favorite brands to learn about new products and updates.

6. Use mobile apps to drive engagement

Mobile apps can help marketing teams promote their loyalty programs because they can increase customer engagement. For instance, mobile apps let marketers send push notifications about new offers to all users. Apps also let customers track loyalty points from their phones and can boost CX with gamification.

To gamify a loyalty program, a mobile app's UI can display the number of loyalty points customers have earned and the number they need to achieve their next reward. These displays help people feel a sense of achievement as they move closer to exclusive offers, which can improve engagement.

7. Incentivize customers to refer others

CX teams should reward customers when they enroll in the loyalty program and make frequent purchases, but they should also incentivize them to refer friends and family. Loyalty members make a great referral channel because consumers trust people they know more than marketers.

Also, marketing teams can gamify the referral process on mobile apps to increase customer engagement and reward customers as they refer new members.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in 2022 and was updated to reflect changes in best practices for loyalty programs.

Griffin LaFleur is a MarketingOps and RevOps professional working for Swing Education. Throughout his career, LaFleur has also worked at agencies and independently as a B2B sales and marketing consultant.