How to Choose the Best Loyalty Program for Your Small Business

For many small businesses, the key to growth lies in building a sense of community. Often, that community consists of a constantly shifting mix of loyal customers, new customers, and partner businesses. But, how do you go about creating a strong community around your business? After all, you can’t just snap your fingers and summon a long line of customers outside your door, no matter how many magic spells you try.

If you want to establish the connections that lead to a community, the first step is to create a loyalty program. According to recent data, 55% of consumers worldwide indicate that offering a rewards program is the best way for businesses to keep them coming back for more. However, you want to make sure the program you choose is right for you and your customers and making that decision isn’t always easy.

In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about picking the perfect loyalty program for your small business, including which features will help you meet your goals.

Know Your Loyalty Goals

Before you start shopping around for loyalty software, you first have to take some time to figure out exactly what you want from your rewards program. What are the main goals you want to accomplish? What would a successful rewards program look like to you? Defining these goals early on will help guide you to the right type of loyalty program for your business.

Here are a few examples of things your loyalty program can help you accomplish:

• Building long-lasting customer relationships.
• Boosting sales and basket sizes.
• Broadening your reach.
• Attracting new customers.
• Encouraging repeat visits and purchases.

Chances are, you want to accomplish everything on that list. But, focusing on one or two main goals to start out will allow you to hit the ground running and scale up as your business grows.

7 Features to Look for in Top Rewards Programs

Every customer rewards program is unique. However, there are some stand-out loyalty features that are particularly useful for small businesses.

1. Simplicity

Simplicity is important for both you and your customers. On the business end, an easy-to-use platform allows you to quickly make changes to your loyalty program so it’s always fresh and updated with your latest offers.

From the customer’s perspective, simplicity means they can find everything they need in just a few clicks. This is especially necessary on the customer end because most customers won’t go to the trouble of engaging with rewards if the redemption process is too complicated. Every aspect of a successful loyalty program should be seamless for everyone involved.

2. Affordability

Believe it or not, you don’t have to burn through your savings to run a VIP rewards program. There are affordable tools that offer most, if not all, of the same features that the most expensive platforms provide.

At Ostana, for example, we recognize how difficult it can be for small businesses to fit a loyalty program into their existing budgets. We created our loyalty and engagement software specifically with this dilemma in mind, so you can create a budget rewards program that still has all the high-quality features you expect from top loyalty programs.

3. Accessibility and Marketing

To be effective, your loyalty program has to meet customers where they are. Whether they’re in-store or online, customers want to be able to access their rewards 24/7. These days, most of us are used to having all the products and services we want at our fingertips, and loyalty programs are certainly no exception.

You also need to actually get the message out to your customers. Different customers will respond to different types of marketing, so it helps to have options at your disposal. Some might respond better to emails while others prefer push notifications or social media announcements. To capture the eye of every potential customer, look for a loyalty software that lets you do it all!

4. Personalization

Offering personalized rewards is a major part of creating the best customer experience through your loyalty program. Customers want to feel understood by the businesses they love, and a one-size-fits-all rewards program can’t give them that feeling.

By putting together personalized rewards or allowing your customers to pick out their rewards themselves using their points, you can let them know that their experience matters to you, helping establish a more meaningful relationship between them and your business.

5. Integration

If you want every aspect of your loyalty program to feel as seamless as possible, you should also consider whether or not the software you choose can integrate with your existing tools.

Combining your loyalty software with your POS, for example, lets customers access their rewards directly at checkout. This is more convenient for them, and it increases the chances of them buying more in order to take advantage of an existing offer.

6. Audience Segmentation

Segmentation allows you to sort your audience by a variety of factors, including age, gender, location, or where they are in the customer lifecycle. You can then use this data to further personalize their loyalty experiences, sending out customized messages to the groups that will respond to them the best.

7. Unique Offerings

An engaging loyalty program is more than just a discount factory. Discounts certainly have their place as rewards, but the truth is that they’re not as engaging as other more unique offerings. Plus, it can be difficult for small businesses to bring in the profits they need when they’re constantly losing money to discounts. Instead, find a loyalty software that lets you shake up your rewards by going beyond the same old boring discount codes.

Build Your Perfect Loyalty Program with Ostana

There is one loyalty and engagement software that offers all these features and more: Ostana! We created Ostana to give small businesses access to the tools they need to build top rewards programs that rival the big box stores. Ostana allows you to delight your existing customers with a full spectrum of customizable rewards and attract new ones by partnering with other businesses in your area via our ever-growing small business ecosystem.

No matter what you want to accomplish with your loyalty program, Ostana can help you cross the finish line and keep on going!