Audiences are constantly exposed to huge amounts of advertising and marketing campaigns launched by competing brands that fight fiercely for their attention. In this environment, they are more likely to turn their eyes to personalised communications from trusted brands that cater to their interests 🤝 Consequently, it is now more important than ever for brands to understand their audience members and establish deep connections with them.
In this pursuit, collecting first- and zero-party data is indispensable. Simply knowing the identifiable personal information of your audience members is not enough anymore; it is crucial to continuously enrich your audience database with more data voluntarily provided by individuals, ensuring that you stay up to date with their interests and preferences.
Reward programs have established themselves as an unparalleled marketing strategy for brands to engage with their audience and collect their data 🌟 Are you curious about how they work? Read on!
About reward programs 🎁
Reward what? Yes, reward programs! If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a reward program is a marketing strategy designed to incentivise recurrent interactions between your audience members and your brand.
This can be done by setting up a system where individuals collect points through all their interactions with your brand, which they can then exchange for appealing rewards! These rewards may be anything from samples of your product to a free subscription to your platform, or even a trip – no one knows your audience’s tastes better than you!
Reward programs are hosted in member portals, gated and fully customisable digital environments where your members can interact with the reward dynamics. Paired with Single Sign-On (SSO), your members will be able to register once and come back to the member portal time and again without effort.
Member portals allow brands to centralise all their interactive marketing campaigns in one place, incentivising their members to participate in them with the prospect of obtaining juicy rewards. This offers brands a unique space to:
✨ Foster audience-brand engagement through interactions within the reward program.
👋 Retain their customers by offering attractive rewards and benefits.
📚 Gain deeper insights into their audience by collecting their first- and zero-party data, allowing for personalised brand experiences.
💸 Boost their sales by channelling their program’s traffic to their e-commerce site or platform.
💞 Cultivate meaningful relationships with their audience, setting the brand apart from the competition.
Discover the reward program ‘Bons plats, bon karma’, which Groupe SEB launched for their brand Moulinex. The program has steadily been growing in members since it’s launch, with member purchases being twice as big as the average customer’s.
Read the full success story to learn more about Groupe SEB’s marketing strategy and the important role that this reward program plays in engaging and qualifying Moulinex’s audience.
Building reward programs with Qualifio 🚀
Qualifio’s reward programs are based on an earn-and-burn system, combining five main elements:
Let’s have a closer look at these!
Earning rules and currencies 🤑
Your program, your rules! Earning rules allow you to define how members of your reward program can earn those highly sought-after points. They serve as an excellent tool to steer your members towards taking actions that align with your marketing goals.
Consider data enrichment. With earning rules, there are infinite ways to invite your program members to share their data with you. For instance, you can award points to those members that tell you when their birthday is! Here are more of the many actions you can tie to your earning rules:
- Participation in your Qualifio campaigns: integrate all your interactive marketing campaigns with your reward program – games, contests, quizzes, you name it! Reward your members with well-deserved points for engaging with your campaigns and sharing their first- and zero-party data.
- Making purchases on your e-commerce site: drive your sales by incentivising transactions. Awarding your members points based on criteria such as total amount spent or item quantity.
- Triggering of program-specific events: rewarding your members throughout their journey with your program is important. Hand out points when they first become members, when their birthday comes, on each occasion they return to the program, and more!
- Triggering of custom events: tailor your earning rules to your needs. Offer members points for actions such as subscribing to your newsletter, visiting your website, downloading an app, referring a friend, and beyond.
Imagine this: a member participates in one of your quiz campaigns – they earn 50 points just for participating! But wait, did they get all the questions right? That’s an additional 5 points per correct answer! On top of that, are they also subscribing to your newsletter and sharing their participation on social media? That’s another 25 points, times two! As you can see, the possibilities with earning rules are endless 🤗
An earning rule allows you to award points based on member actions, opening up a world of opportunities for marketers. Earning rules serve as an excellent tool to encourage any desired behaviours from your audience, whether it’s sharing their data, purchasing a product, engaging with your content or following your social media platforms.
We’ve talked about earning points. But what are these represented by exactly? Enter currencies! 💎
Currencies are the fuel of a reward program, as your members will need to collect them in order to redeem the fabulous rewards you offer. You can opt for a single currency or create multiple ones, customising them to match the aesthetics of your brand. Make them look like coins, stars, or diamonds – the choice is yours!
Currencies can have an expiration date, which creates a sense of urgency among your members. This invites them to interact again with your program, either to spend their points before they expire or to obtain the points they’re missing to redeem their favourite reward.
Burning rules and rewards 🔥
At this stage, members of your reward program likely earn points left and right through their interactions with your content. And now, it’s time for them to put those points to good use: burning them!
Burning rules, in contrast to earning rules, outline how your program’s members can spend their accumulated points on the rewards you offer. With burning rules, you can determine:
- The number of points members need to redeem each type of reward.
- How members can use their different currencies to obtain rewards.
- The quantity of each reward type available in your reward program.
We’re talking about reward programs, aren’t we? So, what sorts of rewards can you provide? Anything goes! 👽 From coupons and samples to exclusive products and experiences, you have the power to define how many items of each kind will be available in your program and how many points your members will need to spend on them.
Spice things up with a tiered level system 🏆
Want to foster engagement with your reward program further? Establishing a tiered level system might just do it.
Qualifio’s reward programs allow you to create different levels, through which your members can ascend as they accumulate points. But what’s in it for you? Depending on their level, you can decide which rewards and benefits are available to members! This way, you can motivate your members to interact even more with your program by placing the most desired rewards in the higher levels, creating a sense of urgency among your members to collect them before they run out 🚨
Tiered level systems are not just a way of boosting engagement and participation in reward programs, but also a reward mechanism in themselves. The more a member interacts with your program, the more points they collect, and the closer they get to their next level. This way, you reward your members differently depending on their engagement with your brand, while making them feel appreciated for their dedication.
Member portals: where reward programs live 🏡
Everything makes sense, right? Exciting rewards are on offer; members can take actions to earn points and exchange them for rewards. But where does all of this take place? Qualifio’s reward programs are hosted in member portals.
A member portal is a digital space where all the aspects of your reward program reside. It offers a gated environment, requiring individuals to provide their credentials when they log in for the first time. However, with Qualifio’s reward programs, members only need to register once, thanks to our Single Sign-On (SSO), making subsequent visits to the program smooth and easy! 😉
Our member portals are based on a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, multiple block types and widgets. With these, you can add diverse content to your portal and make it pop! These include:
- Qualifio campaigns.
- Program leaderboard.
- History of earned and burned points.
- Reward catalogue.
- Multimedia content.
- Custom text and images.
- And more!
Setting up a member portal doesn’t require any technical expertise, and you have the freedom to customise it as much as you want to ensure that it embodies the essence of your brand! 🎨
Reward programs make the perfect place to meet with your audience members repeatedly over time, getting to know them better as you enrich their data profiles with new information they provide. And you know what? You can integrate any of your marketing tools with your member portal to automatically feed them the data you collect.
Are you ready to get closer than ever to your audience with a reward program? Request a demo now!
