The word says it all: it is a program that you use for your loyal readers or customers. They ensure that your company is successful, for the right word of mouth and they may even be your brand ambassador. That is why companies organize customer days, develop savings programs, give discounts on products or give priority to event registration. And email is a great way to let your loyal readers know about this.
A loyalty program makes it possible to pay extra attention to existing customers with relatively little effort. By going that one step further, you create appreciation and extend your customer relationship. And a nice touch: this type of email scores remarkably high in terms of open/click-through rates and is a proven branding concept.
Getting started
Spotler has a standard template for a loyalty program. You can always expand or adjust the campaign flow as desired. The campaign flow of the Loyalty Program template looks like this:
Goal = Building and expanding relationships (customer development or retention)
Trigger campaign = Subscription date
Campaign = One year after the registration date, the Loyalty program tag is given to a customer and is supplemented with 1 point. At 10:00 a message is sent with a loyalty program. Another year later, the score is increased by 1 point and another message is sent. Based on the scoring, you know how long you have a customer relationship with a contact.
You go through the following steps when you use our standard template:
You use the following modules for this:
1. Compose messages
Three different messages are needed for this campaign:
- Loyalty program - Email 1
A message where you reflect on the 1-year customer relationship. - Loyalty program - Email 2
A message where you reflect on the 2-year customer relationship.
Do you want to give a discount? Then use the Unique discount codes functionality. Don't forget to set your campaign message to Final status, otherwise it will not be selectable in the editor.
2. New automation
You go through the following steps in the Automations module:
- Click on the yellow button New automation
- In step 1 you enter a name in the Properties, for example; Loyalty program.
- In step 2 you choose whether you want to make a choice from the default templates or a template that you have saved. By default, the choice is on Default templates. Click the Loyalty Program template and click Save & Next.
- In step 3, click on the blue Edit button to open the editor.
- The campaign flow looks like this in the editor:
Trigger:The subscription date is the trigger. Anyone in your Spotler database who has a subscription date can receive this campaign. That is why it is important to apply another filter to this trigger, so that only the contacts in your database who have given permission for the newsletter receive this automatic campaign.
Permission required for the campaign This campaign may only be triggered for contacts who have given you permission for the newsletter. You can't just send campaign messages to any random contact. By means of filters you ensure that only contacts with the newsletter permission are triggered in the campaign. You can read how to do this in the article: How do I apply a filter to a trigger, action or condition? |
The subscription date indicates when a contact entered Spotler. If you have any of the following dates available in your Spotler account, consider setting that as a trigger: First Purchase Date, Customer Relationship Start Date, First Donation Date. These are even more personal.
Action 1:
One year after the subscription date, a Loyalty program tag is immediately assigned to a contact. In addition, the score for this tag is increased to 1. You see that the Contact action has not yet been set. The tag has yet to be selected/added with a score increment of 1.
Click on the contact action. Don't have a Loyalty program tag in your Spotler account yet? Type Loyalty program in the input field under Select tag and press Enter. Do you already have the Loyalty program tag in your account? Then use the input field under Select tag as search field by typing.
Action 2:
After the tag, there is a 10-hour wait before a message is sent to the contact. You will see that the Send action is not yet fully set up. The correct message has not yet been selected. Click on the send action and then you can select the message you created earlier on the left. In this case: Loyalty program - Email 1.
Action 3:
365 days later, the Loyalty program tag is incremented again by 1 point. Someone has 2 points (meaning 2 years of relationship). The Contact action is not yet fully set up. Click on the contact action and select the tag Loyalty program by searching or clicking on the input field. Then you increase the score by 1 point.
Action 4:
After the tag, there will be a 10-hour wait before the second loyalty program message is sent. Here you also set the Send action. Select the message: Loyalty program - Email 2.
3. Publish automation
To activate the automatic campaign, publish it in the Publisher. You can read more about this in the article: Publisher.