Many B2C companies know that their growth is dependent upon current customers making repeat purchases. And the key to doing that is keeping customers engaged, making them feel good about their purchase, and planting the seed to inspire them to buy more in the future. 

But how can companies possibly do all that?

Sending promo codes and email campaigns announcing new product releases is one way to entice people to visit your website or brick and mortar. But many individuals need more incentive to take that extra step in the customer journey, which is where using B2C marketing automation for your customer rewards programs can save the day.

Before we go any further, let’s discuss what a customer reward program is, how it can benefit your bottom line, and how you can leverage B2C marketing automation to implement your own reward campaigns at your company. 

What is a Customer Reward Program?

A customer reward program is a marketing tactic designed to reward current customers for their ongoing business in an effort to drive engagement and encourage future purchases. Customer reward program members are granted special perks (such as points, promotional offers, gifts, and more) for being long-term and loyal customers. 

An effective customer reward program enables companies to engage customers, demonstrate their value, and motivate their audience to make more frequent purchases. Now that we’ve established what a customer reward program is, let’s chat about a few ways you can leverage B2C marketing automation to implement one at your organization.

Create a Scoring Program to Reward Customers… and Drive Engagement

Most of us probably associate lead scoring as a practice reserved for B2B companies that are trying to gauge where customers are in the sales funnel. But most B2C rewards programs use the same concept. The only difference is that, because these points systems are public, companies don’t subtract points for certain actions (at least as far as customers can see). 

These are a few critical customer actions that you can assign positive scores to: 

Making a purchase: Most rewards programs assign customers certain points for every dollar they spend. Customers usually have to achieve a certain threshold before they are able to redeem those points for discounts on future purchases. How many points you assign to each dollar and the threshold customers usually need to reach before using those points depends on factors such as the average customer purchase and purchasing frequency.

Browsing and saving items: You don’t have to wait until customers make a purchase to reward them for their loyalty. After all, window shopping or browsing through your website is one of the first steps in the customer journey, so giving customers an incentive to complete their purchase might help them reach the end of the sales funnel sooner rather than later. 

Purchase history: Many of your customers are probably creatures of habit, and you can use that to your advantage by assigning additional points when customers make repeat purchases or, if applicable, buy in bulk. You can also track these repeat purchases to gain a sense of which offers to send to your customers in the future. 

To read the full guide for Creating Customer Reward Programs Using Marketing Automation, check out the full blog written by our partner Act-On Software, here.

Need help with your own Customer Rewards Program? Contact Us today to learn more about how we can help.