Webinar- Boost Holiday Season Revenue with a Loyalty Program

August 19, 2022 | Editorial Team | Webinar

The holiday season is eagerly awaited by businesses from a revenue perspective. Every business wants a bigger share of the pie making it critical to outshine your competitors. It is also a great time to make your valued customers feel special. A loyalty program gives you multiple ways to do this! Businesses can stand out by creating a stronger connection with customers using data and strategy in the most effective way.

In this webinar, Dibyo Ghosh, Director of Sales at Zinrelo highlights how loyalty programs can boost revenues during the holiday season. This post includes the recording and presentation for the webinar.

Watch the webinar recording here:

See the webinar presentation:

Key highlights from the webinar:

Important holiday season statistics

1. In 2021 sales grew by 14.1% to a record $886.7 billion in sales.

In September 2021, Deloitte forecasted the holiday season sales to grow by 7-9%.
The actual increase was a record-breaking 14.1% growth.

2. 6/10 retailers promote the holiday season before November

By mid-October, businesses rolled out “Black Friday” deals, many of which occurred on a weekly basis throughout October and November.
Cyber Monday stretched into an entire week, rather than occupying its traditional, single-day slot on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
This trend will likely stick around this year as well.
More businesses will jump on the early deals bandwagon and customers will get their shopping done earlier to beat the crowds and shipping delays that are so common during the holiday season.

3. The holiday season spending is forecast to increase by 3.3%

This return to modest spending gains should align with a more typical consumer economy.
Brick-and-mortar sales will increase 0.9% to $1.026 trillion. Although well below the unprecedented 17.3% jump in 2021, sustaining these massive gains should be seen as a positive indicator of the continued health of the channel.
Ecommerce growth will bounce back to mid-teens growth, rising 15.5% to $235.86 billion. This will put the channel back squarely in the growth range it had been experiencing pre-pandemic.

Benefits of a loyalty program

1. Reduce cash discounts

With brands starting early promotions, it will not be sustainable to provide cash discounts.
By providing loyalty points-based discounts, brands can generate loyalty while boosting their sales.

2. 360-degree Engagement

Loyalty programs create a 360-degree engagement with customers.
During the holiday season, social loyalty can generate positive social media promotions for brands through their customers.

3. Generate customer data -zero- & first-party data

A loyalty program is one of the best ways to collect quality data while engaging the customers.
Only with quality data can brands run targeted campaigns that improve the ROI for their marketing spends.

4. Personalization to evoke strong positive emotions

A business must be able to employ personalization, curated experiences, and targeted exclusivity to get customers emotionally connected.

5. Consistency in omnichannel messaging

Omnichannel marketing allows brands to remain relevant and competitive in a crowded market.
Appealing to customers across multiple channels makes their purchase journey easier which makes them loyal to your brand.

6. Greater choice & perks: Make Your Customers Feel Special

Discount vouchers and free shipping are the most popular choice of rewards. While it is important to offer these, it forms a transactional loyalty.
It is important to offer rewards that go beyond monetary benefits to create long-term engagement with customers.
Rewards can be personalized to create an emotional connection with the customers.

7. Boost customer retention & revenues!

Through all the various features and benefits, loyalty programs have proven time and again to boost customer retention and revenues.

3 key ingredients to create a world-class loyalty program

1. Data Analytics

The first step to launch a loyalty program is structuring it for a specific set of objectives
A data-driven program design is essential to create the financial modeling, set metrics & benchmark KPIs

2. Technology platform

A technology platform is the core of any loyalty platform. It must have all the features & functionality to cater to specific use cases.
The platform should be able to create an omni channel experience for the end user.
It must be robust to offer unlimited customizability & scalability.
Finally, the technology must be secure to protect customer data.

3. Strategy Consultation

The performance of any loyalty program must be analyzed continuously to get actionable insights. This helps in optimization of the program.
Implementing the current best practices and proven strategies maximizes the ROI of the loyalty program.

Success stories of leading brands

The webinar covers case studies and the success these brands have seen with Zinrelo’s loyalty platform.

What are the important features to make a loyalty program successful?

1. Data sciences approach

Data sciences methodology creates a precisely optimized rewards program that boosts revenues and delivers meaningful ROI.
With this approach, businesses can get a perfect fit program optimized to achieve their specific business objectives.

2. Auto-specific loyalty information

Incentivize customers to share information and engage with the brand in exchange of rewards points. This could be sharing the type of vehicle they drive or their preference for certain services etc. This is a crucial aspect of collecting zero-party & first-party data.

3. Personalization

Loyalty programs enable businesses to collect zero & first-party data.
Unlimited member attributes help define customer segments based on customer preferences and improves the ROI of marketing campaigns. Zinrelo provides brands with unlimited flexibility.

4. Omni-channel engagement

Simply selling products on multiple channels does not create an omnichannel experience.
This experience must be seamless across all the channels and must not be restricted to just shopping but focus on holistic customer engagement.

5. Rewards and tiers

Tiers add an element of gamification to your loyalty rewards program that influences customer behavior.
It is also a great way to segregate and prioritize your loyal customers.

6. White glove service

A good white glove service not only helps businesses with the day-to-day support, but it must also help these businesses make their loyalty programs successful.

Success stories of Automotive loyalty programs

The webinar covers case studies of automotive loyalty programs and the success these brands have seen with Zinrelo’s loyalty platform.

Excerpts from the Q & A section of the webinar

1. How does one decide between the different types of loyalty and what is more important? Is there a trend that is seen?

Analyzing the customer data is the first step to employ the optimal mix of different types of loyalty.
Based on the analysis and the desired end-user purchase behavior the loyalty program activities can be set up to include a mix of different types of loyalties.

2. Can the holiday campaigns be automated?

Campaigns can be automated with certain workflows, set to target specific customer segments.
With pre-defined rules for each customer segment, these campaigns can be automated to run for a specific duration of time.
Pre-defined entry and exit clauses can be set so customers enter and exit the campaign when they fulfill the entry or exit criteria.

3. Can the holiday campaigns be white labeled from customers’ perspective?

The campaigns like the loyalty program can be white labeled.

4. What is the ideal time to start the holiday-related promotions in loyalty programs?

With the advantage of loyalty points-based promotions, brands can launch their marketing campaigns early in the season.
The trend has seen brands start promotions as early as mid-October.
By end of September the campaigns should be set up to give enough time for the promotions.

5. What is the time taken to launch a loyalty program with Zinrelo?

Typically, it takes around 4 – 6 weeks as this is a function of the tech stack, the timeline of the data shared, and how soon we can create the right user experience and program design.
For larger companies with a complex tech stack, it can take between 8 – 10 weeks. If you are already using a loyalty platform, the transition to Zinrelo’s platform should take the same amount of time.

6. If the low season is from October to February, what is the ideal date to launch a loyalty program to get maximum loyalty members?

End September would be a good time to launch to make the most out of the slow season.
Five months will be ample time to boost loyalty members (if March onwards is a high season) and get maximum value from these customers.

7. Does Zinrelo have native integration with Salesforce or Magento?

Zinrelo has ready to use integrations with both Salesforce and Magento. The integration will take a couple of days while the complete implementation of the loyalty program will take 4-6 weeks.

8. What is the best way to acquire members in a loyalty program?

Getting people who visit your store/website to register for the loyalty program with an incentive of joining e.g., a loyalty bonus.
Setup activities for people to earn more points to ensure they have enough points to redeem a reward. They can only redeem rewards while making a purchase.

Planning to launch a loyalty program? Book a demo.