Why Savvy SMBs Are Focusing on the Post-Sale Experience
Two-thirds of American adults say they plan to shop at more small businesses in the coming months, providing independent retailers with the perfect opportunity to turn those new customers into brand advocates.
Putting the strategy into action means capitalizing on what ActiveCampaign CEO Jason VandeBoom sees as the biggest untapped opportunity for local retailers right now — the post-sale engagement.
Brands Are Struggling with Customer Loyalty in 2020. Here’s Why
The pandemic has sparked changes in consumer behavior. Some changes are predictable, like people stocking up on toilet paper when lockdown orders first went into effect.
But other changes occurring over the past seven months have been more slight and easier to miss. Now, with the holiday shopping season getting into full swing, brands are discovering that these minor shifts in consumer behavior have the potential to wreak havoc on their seasonal marketing strategies.
Belly Launches Loyalty Platform for Enterprise Retailers
According to the company, the new product will be considerably more flexible than Belly’s original loyalty rewards program for small businesses, giving retailers with large physical store footprints the opportunity to design more unified experiences across in-store, mobile, and online channels.
FiveStars Digs Deeper Into Customer Data to Get Beyond ‘Loyalty’
FiveStars co-founder and CEO Victor Ho, who will be a speaker at Street Fight Summit West next week, caught up with us recently to talk about the efficiency of retention marketing, the shift from daily deals to digital loyalty programs, and what analyzing the trove of SMB consumer data can potentially yield.
7 Smart Ways to Deliver Loyalty Rewards Based on Buying Patterns
Hyperlocal vendors are increasingly marketing their high-tech loyalty programs at small and mid-size businesses, with easier ways for business owners to deliver loyalty rewards based on data captured through the point-of-sale. Here are seven ways merchants can use purchasing behaviors to offer more relevant rewards.
Case Study: NJ Gym Uses Loyalty Program to Increase Sales from Existing Members
When consumers commit to joining a gym and paying a fixed rate each month, they’re indirectly confirming their loyalty to the business. But after years of working with clients at Gold’s Gym of Jersey City, sales manager Mauricio Calmet noticed that a secondary loyalty market exists, one that’s rarely tapped by businesses once they’ve signed customers up for yearlong contracts or memberships.
5 Tools Local Merchants Can Use to Segment In-Store Visitors
Loyal customers are incredibly valuable to local merchants. A new class of hyperlocal platforms is helping small business owners pinpoint and engage with repeat visitors using a combination of in-store beacons, geo-location tools, and customer segmentation technology. Here are five platforms that enable merchants to track visit frequency and send highly targeted promotions to maximize sales among their most valuable customers.
5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Negative Reviews
All business owners cringe at the sight of a one- or two-star review shown publicly on any review site. The immediate feeling is often disbelief, anger, and resentment toward both the customer and the review site. There is almost nothing that makes business owners more emotional than public criticism of their work. But emotions aside, negative reviews can actually be a good thing. Here are five ways they can help your business thrive.
10 Strategies for Choosing the Right Loyalty Incentives
Although there are no right and wrong answers when it comes to structuring rewards in a loyalty program, there are some overarching guidelines that merchants should follow to ensure their programs remain profitable. Here are 10 tips from experts in the space on how merchants can ensure they aren’t giving away too much (or too little) in their loyalty programs…
Street Fight Poll: For Deals, It’s Still ‘One and Done’
According to our poll, almost 42% of 750 consumers surveyed on September 6 said they’ve never returned to a business they first visited to redeem a deals voucher, and fewer than 17% have been back more than five times. Almost 17% returned once, and a shade less than 25% between two and five times.
CorFire, Edo Announce Mobile Offers Partnership
CorFire and edo have announced a mobile partnership in which edo’s offers platform will be linked with CorFire’s mobile wallet solution and marketing services. The result, which is currently in beta testing and expected to be made widely available later this year, will allow merchants and financial institutions to build off preference analytics and past spending behavior…
Case Study: Charlottesville Cafe Increases Customer Frequency With Cardagin
At Calvino Cafe in Charlottesville, Virginia, owner Katie Kroloff was already looking for a marketing program that provided trackable results when a salesperson from Cardagin Networks walked through her door. The loyalty platform provided many of the same benefits as the punch card system she had been using, but with fewer headaches and better rewards…
Swipely Launches Direct Marketing Product Tied to Payments
The company’s new back-end solution brings ecommerce tools to offline stores. The “Main Street Marketing Manager,” which has been running in a closed beta for the past year, enables local merchants to build loyalty and marketing programs on top of their existing credit and debit card processing systems…
Why Loyalty Programs Are Broken — And How to Fix Them
The customer loyalty vertical is red-hot. Startups from Silicon Valley to Chicago are working hard to innovate in this area, and, in so doing, are revolutionizing the way brick-and-mortar businesses do business. But startups need to look beyond the simple punch-card model and expand their loyalty products to include features that will effectively influence customer behavior…