Start-ups and small businesses can build and run a smart and simple loyalty program using the features of mobile wallets. In a very cost-efficient manner.
People use mobile wallets more and more. And it is not difficult to understand why. I put together the top five ways coffee shops and sweet shops, local restaurants, retail stores, food trucks or sandwich stores, hair salons and barber shops, car or motorcycle garages, florists, massage parlors or nail studios, fitness studios, gyms, etc. can make the mobile wallet a win for them and their customers.
Your own branded digital content for mobile wallets would become a new communication channel for you. It is interactive and allows for sending push notifications with your deals, promotions, and discounts, or exclusive content directly to the lock screen of your customers. It also can be offered on the lock screen of the mobile phone by the mobile wallet upon arriving at pre-defined places together with location-specific messages. This would allow your customers to access exclusive offers based on their location, or just tap to show, scan or redeem.
Digital Coupons
Discount coupons have been around for well more than a hundred years. We all love good deals and we respond to coupons. But I don’t like clipping coupons from newspapers. Who would like it, right? It is a hassle. And when a paper coupon is redeemed, the customer’s experience with your business is over. What if you could easily design and create a digital coupon that lives in a customer’s mobile wallet? Such a digital coupon can be updated at any time. So you could easily keep the information always relevant and up to date.
Digital Stamp Cards
The backbone of any business is its customers. Delivering good products and services is the key to winning your customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. In today’s hyper-competitive business environment, you have to go the extra mile when it comes to keeping customers returning. Of all types of loyalty programs, the paper stamp card is the absolute worst and the most ineffective technique. People lose it soon or just don’t have it whenever they need it. It’s incredibly difficult to track and keep a record of paper cards. You would know the total amount of paper stamp cards issued. But there is no way to find out how many of them are with one stamp. And who owns them. Why don’t you build your loyalty program around a digital stamp card that would live in a customer’s mobile wallet? This one just can’t be lost.
Digital Points Cards
With a loyalty points program, businesses create their own form of currency. Customers can collect it and spend it at the same place — your place. This encourages them to stay with you rather than looking for an alternative. Like the frequent flyer miles used by many airlines. The loyalty points program is a great way to keep your customers coming back. What is a better way to reinforce customer loyalty than a high-quality plastic points card? A digital points card for the mobile wallet. It is dynamic with clickable links on the backside. Your customers can﹣in a convenient way directly from a mobile phone﹣view information you want them to have at their fingertips.
Digital Customer Cards
Businesses issue or give a customer card to their customers to show appreciation and reward them. After a plastic or paper customer card is given to your customer, you have to wait until the customer’s interaction with your business resumes. In other words, you can’t talk to a piece of plastic or paper. And there’s nothing worse for your customer than getting in the checkout line and realizing that he or she forgot your plastic or paper customer card home.
With a digital customer card that lives in your customer’s mobile wallet, you can use push notifications to re-engage your customers. And replace your email newsletters with messages delivered in a new and extremely effective way — straight on their lock screen. You can collect feedback. Or cross-promote with neighboring or other cooperating businesses.
Digital Membership Cards
The cost of acquiring a new customer is multiple times higher than the cost of selling to an existing customer. And more: an existing customer will purchase much more than a new customer. Loyalty is the key, and a customer club can boost connections with people. People can even pay a membership fee in exchange for enhanced rewards that they can use upon joining. Instead of using paper and plastic membership cards, you can introduce interactive and dynamic digital membership cards that look fantastic on mobile phones. Renewing membership with such digital membership cards for mobile wallets will no longer be a pain.
Ladislav Poledna inspires readers to “Become Digital” by publishing materials about digital marketing in his Prague Monitor column and aptly named blog. He has built a career around developing successful customer relationships for the past two decades. At present, Ladislav manages the Power Solutions division of the world’s leading producer of engines, batteries, and outdoor power equipment in Central and Eastern Europe and also oversees operations of the company’s regional office in Prague. Recently, he co-founded a B-to-B software service company making mobile marketing affordable and easy to use. Ladislav’s philanthropic contribution consists of a long-term relationship with a charity focused on funding dreams for people with muscular dystrophy.
Mobile phones are long becoming the main “screen” in peoples’ lives. Mobile marketing is no longer an innovation but a part of important decisions. Read articles on mobile marketing to get inspired on how to connect with people where they spend a lot of their time. Become Digital.
