Marketing Your Perkville Rewards Program Keep Customers Engaged Before & After Launch PART 1
Table of Contents Fundamentals Launch checklist Marketing before launch Email marketing Staff training Marketing flyers Social media plan Event planning 3 4 6 7 9 12 12 15
POS Finish the Fundamentals
What You Need to Do Before Launch Before you think about marketing your rewards program to your customers, you ll need to get a few ducks in a row. Your Customer Success representative will go through all of this with you, but just in case you need a refresher, here s what needs to be done before you can release your rewards program to your customers. Connect your POS system with Perkville To fully take advantage of an automated rewards program, you ll need to connect your POS system with your Perkville account. Once you ve done this, Perkville automatically syncs with any changes made with your POS, such as new customers. How you connect your POS system to Perkville varies depending on the system. If you haven t already, check in with support@perkville.com about setting up your integration. Set up your rewards Before you can start rewarding your customers for specific actions, you ll need to set up your earning activities. Your POS system will dictate exactly what earning activities you can award points for, but you ll generally be able to reward your customers for visiting your location, posting to social media, referring their friends and more. The rewards you offer and the point values that go along with them will all depend on the type of business you run. No matter what you choose, you ll know that you re increasing referrals, social media and retention in your business. Pro tip Add photos to your rewards to show your customers what they ll receive once they hit that threshold. When adding a reward, scroll down to Photo and choose Upload a new photo. Customers are more likely to work toward a reward when they understand more about what they re earning. We re here for you. Your Perkville Customer Success representative can offer some tips and tricks to help you get the most of your rewards program. Marketing Your Rewards Program 3
Recheck your launch checklist In Perkville, you ll see your own launch checklist as you re setting up your rewards program. You ll want to make sure that everything on that checklist is done before clicking that Launch Rewards button. Adding your company logo and branding colors. Head to the Branding section of your settings and upload your business s logo. Once you do this, you can customize your rewards program's color by either clicking Match Logo or choosing a different, coordinating color from the color selector. You can even put in your color s hex code if you d like. Adding your Facebook and Twitter information. Click on My Business, and then Settings. This will take you to the Business Info section, where you can add your social media accounts. Creating a welcome message. Your welcome message is the best way to explain your rewards program to your customers in their invitations. Head to the Rewards Program section of your dashboard and click on "Advanced." Add your welcome message in the box and click the Save button. If you're stuck for ideas on your welcome message, here's a template that we've found works well. At [your business name], we think of rewards in more ways than one. [Your product or services] have life-changing benefits all their own. But now, there are also loyalty benefits through The NEW [your business name] rewards program! You EARN POINTS for just coming into [your business name], and then you can easily redeem those points for merchandise, free stuff and much more. It's fun, easy and completely free just be sure to claim your points to complete your registration today. Thank you for being a part of [your business name] family! Marketing Your Rewards Program 4
Rewarding referrals. Incentivize customers by creating a referral offer that they can share with friends on social and email. Click on Rewards Program and then My Business. From there, click on the pencil next to "Refer a friend" and define how many points you want to award. Create a title for your offer and select an image, or upload your own. Finish it off with promotional details (how to redeem) and any fine print (for new Pro tip Use your referral offers to increase your revenue by incentivizing premium services or ancillary spend. Offer 20% off an add-on treatment (such as a ten-minute neck massage with a facial) or 20% off a customer s first personal trainer session. clients only, etc.). Refer a friend, earn 50 points when they join YogaXYZ Friends get a Free Week of Yoga Make a marketing plan. Now that you ve ironed out the logistics, it s time to spread the word about your rewards program. We recommend creating a plan for pre-launch (two weeks to a month ahead) and post-launch (two to three months after) to help spark interest and keep your customers engaged. We ve put together a handful of tried-and-true tactics for making the most out of your rewards program. Try a few or all of them it all depends on your bandwidth and adjust as you see certain techniques working best for your business. Marketing Your Rewards Program 5
Marketing Before Launch Get Your Customers Interested
Marketing Before Your Launch The key to a successful rewards program is not just in how you pick the points, how it looks and how easy it is to redeem for a reward. In fact, the key to a successful rewards program is getting your customers to really use it. Luckily, we ve seen thousands of these rewards programs launch and know a thing or two about what it takes to get your customers to adopt your rewards program and make it part of their routine. Some of these include: Getting some email marketing together Training and educating your staff about your rewards program Creating flyers to spread the word Scheduling and publishing some social posts Planning an event While taking on all of these might be out-of-reach timewise, you can pick and choose a couple of tips from this list to help you get started spreading the word. 1 Get Your Email Marketing Together Time Commitment: 1-2 Hours Difficulty level: 5 / 10 The great thing about email marketing is that you can write up your emails and have them ready to send in an hour or two and you can do them well in advance to save you during crunch time. We recommend sending two emails before you launch your rewards program. These emails should be completely devoted to explaining what your rewards program is, how your customers can earn points, what special bonuses you re hosting and some sample rewards that your customers can redeem their points for. Marketing Your Rewards Program 7
Email #1: 1.5 Weeks Before Launch Sample Subject Lines: We want to reward you for making [our business] part of your life. Join our new rewards program. Earn points and redeem for prizes. Check out our new rewards program. This email should go into the nitty gritty of your rewards program. Introduce Perkville as your partner and outline what your rewards program will include. Talk about earning activities, how your customers can rack up points, and when this all goes live. The goal here is to raise both awareness and excitement about this new component of your business. And, if you re having an event to kick off your rewards program (more on that later), plug in the date and time for that as well. Email #2: Day of Launch Sample Subject Lines: Today s the day. Our rewards program is live. Time to get rewarded. Our rewards program goes live today. Join us as we launch our new rewards program. Pro tip In your second email, include a special offer or extra bonus points for those customers who come in on launch day. This will incentivize your customers to join your rewards program right away and participate in this momentous occasion. This email is a reminder that: 1) Your rewards program exists 2) Your customers can now earn points and use the program 3) Your customers need to sign up for the rewards program either before they start earning points or once they ve earned points (plus how to do it) 4) If you re having an event, that it s happening! Marketing Your Rewards Program 8
Now that your rewards program is live, education 1 shifts a bit from awareness to actually using the program. In this email, remind your customers about the benefits of the rewards program and how they can earn points. On top of that, tell them the easy ways of signing up for the rewards program. You can either include a link to your rewards program s page, where clicking Join Program will prompt them to create an account, or they can wait until they complete their first earning activity, when they ll receive an email from Perkville prompting them to claim their points. You can obviously start these emails further in advance if you d like. We ve crafted some email headers that you can use in these communications. Head to our blog (blog.perkville.com) to edit and download those for your own use. Plug a Blurb Into Your Usual Newsletter It doesn t hurt to plug in a paragraph or two about your rewards program in your usual recurring newsletter, especially if these have a higher open rate than your one-off emails. Give a glimpse into what the rewards program will do for your customers and give them a link to join and check it out. Once you ve done this, you can use the same template for upcoming newsletters and keep the same blurb around for a few months. 2 Train your staff Time Commitment: 1-2 Hours Difficulty level: 5 / 10 While you may not think that training your staff about your rewards program qualifies as marketing, that couldn t be further from the truth. Your staff is your greatest asset when it comes to spreading the word about your rewards program and getting your customers to sign up for it. Marketing Your Rewards Program 9
While your staff doesn t need to know the complete ins-and-outs of your program (and your Perkville account), there are a few things to train them in so that they can help current customers with their points 1 and advertise your rewards program to new customers. Talking about the rewards program with your customers Like we said, your staff is your best (and mostly free) advertisement. You ll want them to be able to explain at a high level what your rewards program is, how your customers can earn points and how to redeem points. We recommend making it part of your staff s script when they talk about your business, your membership system and your offerings. Basically, if someone asks any questions around Why should I choose you?, you can plug the rewards program as an added benefit for customers. Another option is to seamlessly tie it into your business model as a whole. The rewards program is part of your core business, and you can speak about it as such. It also helps for your staff to know the basics behind how the rewards program works. Teaching them the following blurb can help them speak to the details of your rewards program when interacting with a customer. Perkville is our rewards program which automatically awards you points for visiting our business. You ll receive an invitation to join the rewards program the first time you earn points. Once you create an account, you can track your points online from your computer or smartphone and participate in activities to earn more points, such as posting about your experience with us on Facebook and Twitter and referring your friends. Once you earn enough points for rewards, you can redeem those points on Perkville and bring in a voucher to use as payment. Marketing Your Rewards Program 10
Your staff members should also have a good idea about the different earning activities you have chosen, what the frequency and time bonuses are, and a few of the things that customers can redeem points for. 1 Adding points Occasionally, your staff members may want to add points manually. This could be because you re hosting a special social contest offering points for comments, or anything else that occurs outside of Perkville when your customers can earn points. To do this, go to the Add / Redeem page in the My Business dropdown. Select a location, enter the customer s email address and select the earning rule. Click the "Submit" button to grant points. Redeeming points Once your customers hit a specific point threshold, they can choose to redeem their points by trading them in for vouchers that they can use in your business. Occasionally, that means that they ll come into your business looking to redeem a voucher. Your staff will want to mark the points as redeemed when this happens. There are two ways to mark perks as redeemed: Go to the Add / Redeem page. Select Redeem Points at the top of the page. Then select the location, enter their email address, select the reward in the drop down, enter the quantity and click "Submit. Click on the Customers dropdown in your My Business tab. Search for the customer and click on their name. Next, click "Redeem Points," which will show a pop-up menu where you can select the reward and redeem it for them. Once your staff is trained in the basics of your rewards program, tell them to advocate for it as much as possible, whether they re talking to new customers or your regulars. Marketing Your Rewards Program 11
31 Create a flyer to spread the word Time Commitment: 10 mins - 1 hour Difficulty level: 3 / 10 Some of your customers aren t big on email. Others wouldn t touch Facebook with a ten-foot pole. For those people who prefer learning about new things in real life, posting flyers in businesses that you partner with as well as your own can help spread the word about your rewards program. You can use the editable Canva templates that we ve created to help you advertise your rewards program, or you can make one on your own. Pro tip Reach out to local businesses that offer complementary products or services to your business, especially if you already have a relationship with them. Ask them to post your flyer on their community board and make sure to invite them to come by on launch day. 4 Schedule some social posts Time Commitment: 30 mins - 1 hour Difficulty level: 3 / 10 Scheduling your social ahead of time will help take off some of the pressure that comes with an official launch of something. It s a good idea to start publishing about your rewards program at least two weeks ahead of time so that you have ample opportunity for your customers to see your posts. Check out our schedule for ideas on social posts and a cadence that we find works leading up to an event. Marketing Your Rewards Program 12
2 weeks before launch 1 & We have some big news! In just a couple of weeks, we re partnering with Perkville to develop [your business name] s very own rewards program! You ll earn points for things you do with us every day, and you can redeem those in our [shop/gym/ spa/salon/studio] for awesome stuff. In just a couple of weeks, we re partnering with Perkville to develop [your business name] s very own rewards program! Keep an eye out for updates. 1 weeks before launch & Join us next week on [date of launch] for the official launch of our rewards program! Learn more here. [link to blog post or newsletter PDF] Join us next week on [date of launch] for the official launch of our rewards program! Learn more here. [link to blog post or newsletter PDF] 3 days before launch & We re getting really excited about the upcoming launch of our rewards program! [include graphic] We re getting really excited about the upcoming launch of our rewards program! [include graphic] Marketing Your Rewards Program 13
2 days before launch 1 & Earn points by coming into [your business name], then cash in your points for rewards. It all starts on [date of launch]. Earn points by coming into [your business name], then cash in your points for rewards. It all starts on [date of launch]. 1 day before launch 1 & Tomorrow s the day! What are you hoping to rack up enough points for with our new rewards program? Tomorrow s the day! What are you hoping to rack up enough points for with our new rewards program? Day of launch 1 & It s finally here! Come into [your business name] today to start racking up points and earning rewards. It s finally here! Come into [your business name] today to start racking up points and earning rewards. You don t have to use these captions, and it helps to have images, links or gifs to go along with these posts. You know what your social audience responds to use those similar tactics when announcing your rewards program. Try out Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social to help you schedule your social media ahead of time. Marketing Your Rewards Program 14
51 Plan an event Time Commitment: 1-15 hours Difficulty level: 7 / 10 Planning an event for your rewards program launch is a great way to get people excited and informed about your rewards program albeit a time-consuming one. Depending on your resources, you can host a community event with local vendors, free demos and giveaways. You can give away low-cost prizes (merch you ve been looking to get rid of, partner discounts, classes, day passes and other cheap offerings) to entice people to come by and hang out at your business for the day. On top of that, you can reward points for people who sign up for your rewards program while partaking in your event. Pro tip Offer more points for referrals on launch day, and even a few days after launch. You ll motivate your customers to bring more people through your door while gaining new potential customers (and future rewards program members!). On the other hand, you can still make a day out of your rewards program launch by making it all about the points. Offer 3, 4 or 5x as many points for your customers that join your rewards program on the first day. This will not only help with customer adoption, but it also gets more people through your door on a random day, without sacrificing cost. You can have a few freebies to get people excited, but you don t necessarily need to pour a ton of time and money into your event. If you do plan on hosting an event, promote it on social media and in your emails (if you skipped ahead, go back to the email marketing section for this step) a few weeks ahead of time. This will give people ample time to RSVP and hear about your happening. Marketing Your Rewards Program 15
Congratulations, you re ready for launch! Now that your rewards program is up and running, it s time to keep your customers engaged with your business and earning points in ways that drive referrals, increase spend and generate social media. Stay tuned for our upcoming guide on Marketing After Launch: Keeping Your Customers Engaged. We ll cover more tips on email marketing, social campaigns, bonus rewards, blogging and much more. Need some more help? Contact your Customer Success representative or email support@perkville.com to get your rewards program ready to go live.