10 Ways to Reward Your Customers for More Than Just Purchases

Every loyalty program hands out points and rewards in exchange for certain purchases. It’s time to catapult your small business’s loyalty program to a whole new level by offering new and exciting ways for customers to earn rewards when they shop with you. Here are 10 awesome ideas to help you get started!

1. Become a Member

Rewarding customers for becoming members of your loyalty program is a great way to start building a strong, engaged community. Allow your members to enjoy exclusive benefits that make them feel like VIPS, such as early access to sales, special discounts, or members-only events. This both encourages sign-ups and makes your loyal customers feel more appreciated.

Membership can also give you a deeper look into your customers’ preferences, enabling you to create even better rewards. Those better rewards make your customers happier, and what do happy customers do? Buy more and tell their friends, of course. Everybody wins!

2. Celebrate a Milestone

Acknowledging your customers’ milestones, such as birthdays, anniversaries, or even their first purchase anniversary, shows that you value their patronage on a personal level. Send them personalized messages and offer special rewards like free gifts or exclusive access to a new product you think they’ll enjoy. Even the smallest thoughtful gestures go a long way when it comes to building customer relationships that last.

Celebrating special moments also creates positive associations with your business, making customers more likely to think of your business and return more often. It’s a simple yet extremely powerful way to show your appreciation without breaking the bank on discount codes.

3. Participate in a Promotional Event

Promotional events are both fun and interactive for customers. Try organizing contests, giveaways, or special sales events and incentivize participation with attractive rewards. Customers will be excited at the opportunity to feel like VIPs. They might even bring friends or talk about it on social media, generating a buzz around your business.

Promotional events are also a great opportunity to showcase your products or services while creating memorable experiences for your customers that encourage them to stay connected to your business for a long time.

4. Follow Your Socials

Speaking of generating buzz, it’s always a smart decision to encourage customers to follow your business’s social media accounts. Offer exciting incentives like a prize drawing for followers or exclusive content they can only see if they hit that follow button. In this way, you can grow your online presence while thanking customers for their support at the same time.

These kinds of rewards offer a fast route to online growth because they’re generally low-commitment on the side of the customer, but that boost in followers can be immensely helpful for broadening your reach and driving more traffic where you want it.

5. Refer a Friend

Referral programs let you give back to your customers for doing your advertising for you. Most people tend to trust recommendations from their friends more than strangers, making referrals an excellent source of new business.

Don’t let this gold mine go untapped! Take advantage of the effectiveness and relative ease of word-of-mouth marketing with awesome rewards that make your customers excited to tell their friends all about your business.

6. Promote Your Business on Social Media

Another opportunity to make the most of customer-generated content is by offering rewards in exchange for a customer promoting your business on social media. Whether you welcome them to post reviews and share their experiences, participate in a branded hashtag campaign, or create their own content that can be entered into a contest, there are so many ways to make these types of rewards fun for both you and your customers.

Plus, others will see their authentic testimonials and learn more about your business. Even if they simply learn through osmosis by perusing posts about your business that pop up on their feeds, your business will become more top-of-mind.

7. Download Your App

Your app is your direct line of communication with your customers. You can use it to optimize their experience with your business and gather valuable data about their preferences. Unfortunately, the hardest part is actually convincing them to open up their app store and start the download. To overcome this hurdle, consider rewarding app downloads with enticing incentives like app-only discounts, early access to new products, or extra loyalty points.

Once customers get a taste of your app experience, they don’t want to go back to life without it!

8. Donate to a Charity

Show your customers that your business cares about the community by rewarding them for participating in charitable activities. This will align your business with the idea of making a positive social impact, which is something that greatly appeals to younger consumers. Did you know that 3 out of 4 Gen Z shoppers care more about buying from sustainable businesses than brand names? Clearly, social impact is important to the next generation of consumers. Capture the hearts of your young customers with rewards offered in exchange for donations made through your business or participation in charity events.

9. Give Feedback

Rewarding customers in exchange for their feedback helps you demonstrate how important their voices are in your business. Customers want to feel heard and appreciated. In fact, 83% of customers state that they give more loyalty to businesses that respond to and resolve their complaints. Imagine how much they would love to be heard and rewarded!

10. Try a New Product

Humans are creatures of habit. It can be hard to get people to try something even if they frequent your business all the time. Whether you’re debuting a new special at your restaurant or launching a new clothing line for your boutique, you might find it difficult to entice customers to try your new products. One quick fix for this issue is to offer rewards like a free sample or extra loyalty points in exchange for testing out new products! This way, customers will be more likely to try something new (and love it).

Make the Most of Your Rewards Program with Ostana

At Ostana, we know how hard it can be to run a quality rewards program on a small business budget. That’s why we created a comprehensive loyalty and engagement software uniquely designed to meet the needs of your business without breaking the bank.

Schedule a demo today to learn more about all the things Ostana can do for you!