A customer loyalty programme is a really important piece of the business strategy because its main aim is to help retain your valued customers as well as give you an advantage to recruit new customers. It may seem obvious, but in a world where the marketing function is generally pretty maxed out, does loyalty even come into the conversation?

In terms of boosting customer acquisition and retention, loyalty management should be seen as the obvious choice, since they (ideally) offer a clear, simple, and worthwhile incentive to customers who could just as easily go elsewhere. They inspire loyalty, and give you the perfect platform on which to start building an emotional connection that will last way into the future, even if rivals are sometimes able to undercut you on price (as just one example).

Plus, enthusiastic customers attract enthusiastic customers, thus exponentially boosting acquisition and, in time, retention. Isn’t that what a marketer's dreams are made of?

And that’s not all they have to offer a business? Even if that was the full story, B2B loyalty programmes would still represent one of the fundamentals of good business practice. The promise of better acquisition and retention isn’t the full story – which means we have plenty more to talk about.

Should marketing managers be invested in incentives for customers?

We are so aware that marketing managers have a lot to think about – more than ever before, given how quickly the average ‘internet user/shopper’ is evolving and, accordingly, how fast other businesses are moving just to keep pace with them.

Ultimately, however, all those things marketing managers need to think on any given day, week, or month fall under the remit of customer behaviours. How they are influenced, what causes the release of those ‘happy chemicals’ – the chemicals that influence loyalty –and how to incentivise them to return to you more often and buy more each time they do… do you see where we’re going with this?

Eventually, what falls under the remit of your marketing manager will also fall under the influence of a strong customer loyalty programme. Think of it like a Venn diagram – one with a very large (and significant) crossover in the middle.

For any marketing manager, a strong loyalty programme is one of the best tools of the trade. Not only will it influence behaviour, but, and just as importantly, it will yield some valuable insights into your customers.

How do they get invested?

The first step is simple, but it can be the hardest if your company has never treated customer incentives as anything more than an afterthought. Before anything else, you’ve got to understand the role a loyalty programme can have for business performance.

All too often, we hear of businesses who have approached their incentive programmes for customers from the standpoint of, ‘What rewards should we give them, then?’ It’s an important question to ask, but it’s not the only question – or even the first question – businesses should be asking.

Rewards are part of the plan. You can’t have a rewards programme without them, just like you can’t have a traditional sandwich without bread.

The point is, you can’t build a rewards programme without rewards – but you can’t even get the blueprints right until you understand the role a loyalty programme can have for business performance.

Data is a core driver for a loyalty programme – without it, you simply can’t identify who is buying or re-selling your products/services, therefore, know who is an evangelistic customer and who needs a little help with extra persuasion and support to engage with your business. Given every business knows how to invoice, the data sits somewhere in the ecosystem and it’s our job to unearth this to understand how a loyalty programme can help impact customer performance. Once you invest your time in getting to know your customer, to build the relationship, that’s how the process of trust therefore growth begins.

And it goes without saying that communication is the biggest influencer in the chain…when you get this right it’s like giving every customer a warm cosy hug in a way they want or need it. It feels good, it feels natural and it provides lots of assurances that you are in good hands. Who wouldn’t want to come back for more?!

It all comes down to channel marketing

As the name suggests, channel marketing is all about working with the entire length and breadth of your channel to create awareness, promote products, drum up interest, and ensure customers have more than one reason to return to you. The key is to truly understand all the components of the channel and create a multi-targeted approach to hit the right people at the right time with the right information that’s relevant and useful to them.

We’ve written before about how channel loyalty programmes are the ultimate tool for boosting retention, and creating a broad network of loyalty that is strong enough to withstand the test of time, and rival businesses attempting to dip their toes in your waters.

This is exactly where your marketing strategy and your efforts to reward customers converge. A strong B2B customer loyalty programme is one of the best marketing channels for any business to utilise. Not only are you aligning yourself with an audience that is engaged, enthusiastic and interested in your company, but by using it, you are also targeting retention.

More so than acquisition, retention is the key to a successful and scalable business. Why? 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers and boosting customer retention by 5% increases profits by 25-95%. A customer loyalty platform plays a really integral part of the marketing mix to sustainably build retention, and ensure that customer interest and enthusiasm remains long into the future.

We’ve got lots of insights to add to this thread over the coming weeks – to help and guide you through what may feel like a complex world of customer loyalty …but we’ve got you. As the experts in this field, we’re here to be your steering wheel and gears then squeeze that accelerator to get this journey started.

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