Successful businesses have loyal customers and repeat orders.

Loyalty programs assist businesses to strengthen their ties with their customers and a good loyalty partner can help you do just that.

Loyalty marketing has evolved significantly in recent years. Many brands have recognized the value of transforming cookie-cutter offers and programmatic rewards into personalized, engaging experiences. In other words, humanizing the brand-consumer engagement.

The recent digital push has made it mandatory for businesses to develop omnichannel engagement programs. However, marketers need to engage expert agencies for faster adoption of custom loyalty programs.

However, choosing the right loyalty partner for your brand’s personality and consumer segments is critical for the success of not only the program but also the business.

What exactly is a Loyalty Partner?

A loyalty program is a complex and massive undertaking for which most businesses lack the necessary resources, experience, and expertise. This is where a loyal partner can help. A loyalty partner will:

• Create and implement your loyalty strategy
• Provide the necessary resources and technological requirements
• Lead the data collection through the loyalty program
• Redemption procedures that work in tandem with the company’s CRM

Loyalty partner is a catch-all term. Depending on your marketing budget, business objectives, range of business, audience type, and campaign size, you could work with a loyalty agency or a loyalty platform partner.

Why Is Choosing the Right Loyalty Partner the Most Important Step?

Your decision will have a significant impact on some of the most critical aspects of your business. The following are the most important aspects that it will have an impact on.

1. Impact on Campaign Success

The direct impact of your partner selection will have an impact on the success of your campaign. An experienced loyalty platform partner, such as RewardPort, will design the program with your brand guidelines, business goals, and target group psyche in mind. A lack of research, experience, and expertise can hurt the performance of your loyalty strategy and the brand image.

2. Customer Experience

The primary goal of a loyalty program is to significantly improve the customer experience. A strong brand and customer relationship are built on a positive customer experience. A loyalty program that is tailored to a specific demographic will have a high level of engagement. A program that fails to appeal to the audience, on the other hand, will have a negative impact.

3. Customer Retention Rate

An experienced loyalty partner understands how to retain customers through an engaging loyalty program. Consistent engagement and profitable value exchange between brand and customers can successfully retain customers over time. An expert partner designs the program for long-term engagement and significantly increase customer lifetime value.

4. The Effect on Customer Referral Rate

Customers who are satisfied and happy have a positive influence on their network of friends and family. A profitable and engaging loyalty program combined with a referral program can attract more customers and increase the acquisition rate. This is a win-win situation for both the brand and its customers.

5. Influence on Brand Value

Customer experience, perceived brand image, and customer satisfaction all have an impact on the monetary value of the overall brand, also referred to as brand value. A simple yet effective loyalty program will increase customer satisfaction, retention rate, brand image, and revenue, whereas a poorly designed and executed program significantly reduce brand value.

What Should you Look for in a Loyalty Platform Partner?

Hiring your ideal loyalty partner needs a little due diligence after the brand introspection. You want to be certain that the partner can forward your loyalty strategy and help you implement the brand vision.

For a structured process have a checklist for the following factors while assessing the partners:

1. Strategic Collaboration

Look for a mutually beneficial partnership. A solution provider may have limited responsibilities, whereas a strategic partner can have shared responsibilities. The loyalty partner usually has a broader responsibility for the success of the loyalty program ensuring better KPI achievement.

Loyalty providers must act as partners, not just solutions. Loyalty programs are industry and business model specific. This means that the provider’s team should be able to leverage their expertise to create a successful program that is tailored to your needs.

Marketer-friendly solutions are easy to launch, manage, and troubleshoot independently, but may require additional guidance. A dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) provides

ongoing support and data-driven strategies to ensure that your business goals are met as your brand evolves.

2. Program customization and agility

The relationship between brands and customers is constantly evolving, and your loyalty program should reflect this. Choose a loyalty provider that offers customizable, module-based solutions. You can keep your programs agile and flexible without sacrificing startup speed.

Marketer-friendly solutions make it easy to design, launch, and optimize programs as your business grows. No code, web development, or website redesign required. Test strategies or launch new campaigns quickly and effectively.

3. Provider of Complete Solutions

Similarly, you require a loyalty partner who takes a comprehensive approach. A loyalty program has an impact on many aspects of a business, from marketing to management. As a result, a loyalty partner who takes on full responsibility for a loyalty program comes highly recommended. This will not only relieve you of the burden, but will also ensure smooth execution, increased efficiency, and better results.

4. Capabilities for Data Mining

Loyalty programs are the most effective way to collect zero and first-party data. Look for a loyalty partner with the technological capabilities to efficiently mine data from your loyalty programs. Your loyalty partner must also be able to integrate CRM data with loyalty program data. This will provide you with comprehensive and rich customer data, which will significantly improve your marketing and business strategies.

5. Solutions Provided

Loyalty programs have progressed significantly. Loyalty strategies must now include dynamic elements in order to better gauge the pulse of the audience and provide quantifiable deliverables. Personalization, individualized experiences, gamification, and other features offered by loyalty partners are more suitable for modern-day businesses. Technology is constantly evolving, and you require a partner who keeps up with the times and routinely uses technology to amplify your loyalty program

6. Prior Experience

Experience brings with it a level of finesse and expertise that is unrivalled. Look for partners with extensive experience. The success of a loyalty program is dependent on several nuances that an experienced partner will never overlook or undervalue. Agencies or platforms that have executed several programs over the years understand the nitty-gritty and the importance of the undertaking and can provide solutions that will ensure a higher ROI.

The appropriate loyalty partner will not only further your brand’s vision for consumer retention, but also add value to the brand itself. The retention campaign results can reveal a lot about the product and service usage patterns and where it can absolutely delight your consumers. Thus, helping the brand with insights about product or service and communication improvements.