Implementing Loyalty Levels Into Your Marketing Plan

Implementing Loyalty Levels can boost a companies profits by up to 20 percent or even more. We'll show you how you as a company owner can get started and give you some great ideas as well.

If you as a small business owner are starting to realize that customers are making less money when they do purchase from you, this could be an indicator that your customer and brand loyalty is on the decline. Depending on what niche you are in, this could be happening because of increasing competition from your traditional competitors, as well as new competition coming on the scene.

Now that you're faced with the dilemma of needing to increase your customer loyalty and having to do it fast, how do you do this? You might want to consider Implementing Loyalty Levels in order to keep customers coming back. Big Businesses have been doing this for decades but I hardly ever see smaller businesses doing this. For example Albertson's Super Market just implemented a Preferred Rewards Program.

What this means is that the more money you spend with them now, the more points you will rack up. When you've accumulated 5,000 points you will receive a $5.00 discount the next time you shop there. So the more you decide to shop at Albertson's the more you will save.

Small Businesses should be doing this as well. An example would be to give customers free Loyalty Level cards. Lets say you owned an Oriental Buffet for example. Each time customers decide to eat at your Buffet punch their card one time. After they eat 10 meals there they turn in their card with 10 punched holes so now they can get a free meal there next time they show up.

If you want my advice these days if you are a Small Business you should do something like this so you will stand out from the crowd. If you own a hardware store you could give them a $5.00 gift card that they could redeem on their next visit if they place an order for over $100.00. The point is that customer loyalty will increase if your customers truly feel that you care about them or are at least looking after their best interests. And since Small Business Competition is so fierce these days, you need a Unique Selling Proposition that will separate you from all the other businesses out there.

If you want to use a Loyalty Level System to its fullest potential, you will need the addresses and phone numbers of these customers. That's why large companies like Albertson's offer these kinds of discount programs. It's been tested and it allows them to build a massive database of customers they can send coupons and special offers to in the future. When you start building a list this way you can now even go one step further than Albertson's does by targeting your customers who spend the most money with you. This is where I believe your marketing dollars are well spent.

You can also use the internet and the web as a tool to increase customer loyalty. For example when local customers visit your website, have a method in place where visitors can have a live chat with one of your sales reps during regular office hours of course. Many concerns and frustrations your customers may have can vanish instantly if they have someone to speak to and internet live chat is the easiest way to facilitate personal communication over the web. And since almost everyone has internet access these days, it only makes sense to offer internet chat to customers who want to take advantage of it.

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