5 Ways to Use Gift Cards to Build Customer Loyalty

Loyalty to No End

After you’ve successfully built and increased the brand awareness for your hair business, you should now have some new customer faces and established customer relationships.

Now, the next important step is to retain those new customers always to keep them coming back. This is only logical. A great and effective way to do this is by building your customer loyalty program.

A customer loyalty program is essentially a rewards program offered to clients who frequent your services and business. It provides them with cool benefits like the chance to win or earn free merchandise, rewards, exclusive discounts and first dibs on new products and services you may be offering.

When creating your customer loyalty program, you want to tailor it according to the true needs of your client and target audience, identify with who they are.

The Statistical Breakdown

Before you do so, learn a little more about the statistical breakdown for building that customer loyalty for your hair business:

• According to Marketing Metrics, if a client has previously made a purchase from your company, there is at least a 60% chance that the customer will make at least one more purchase.
• Quality of customer service is essential for customer retention! Studies show that 34% of the time, customers will switch to other companies because they were dissatisfied with the service.
• 66% of consumers said that the design and quality of product or service were the leading factors in determining brand loyalty
• Loyal customers will feel betrayed if a company misuses their information. Nearly four out of five customers would abandon a favorite brand if the company used the customers’ personal data without first notifying them.
• According to other research, loyalty programs are a solid customer retention strategy. But what also matters is how long they stay loyal to the loyalty program, which is proportional to how quickly it yields rewards.

Now that you have some insight of a few key components that can help build your customer retention, you can now focus on what’s most important and effective for the success of your hair business.

Let’s dig into a great tool, like gift cards, and how they can help with customer loyalty and retention when used through a program.

Make Gift Cards Inclusive with Loyalty Program

You’ve already become aware of the huge effect loyalty programs have with your target audience.

Now, it’s a great time to incorporate gift cards into your program. It’s easy, simple and super efficient and you can do this by being tactical and intentional.

Take birthdays for example. It’s a great place to start that doesn’t have to be super expensive and shows a connection with your customer. Be aware of the number of those you have as loyalty program members to determine the cost you’re comfortable with.

Now, with many businesses having apps for their phone, gift cards are easily accessible for any member to use and take advantage of.

Partner with Mutually Beneficial Companies

There's much to benefit from when partnering with other companies that are mutually beneficial both ways.

Businesses that are within your same industry of hair, such as beauty supply stores or product lines, are great to partner with when they offer a complementary service or product to yours. This way you’re actually increasing customer loyalty for both businesses involved.

Partnering with same industry companies can help to broaden the services and products offered making it a total win-win for each party involved; an increase in business sales and discounts and awards for the customer.

For example, if you’re a hairstylist and you partner with a hair company, you can offer $25 or $50 gift cards. Customers can earn these by purchasing hair from the hair company you partnered with and when they book a service with you.

Collaborating and partnering are endless!

Take it Season by Season

The holidays are the most imperative times of the year for most consumers and businesses.

Especially for those who are last minute gift shoppers and need to squeeze in all their shopping within a short amount of time. Incorporating gifts into your business as a holiday strategy takes a huge load off of consumers and makes things a bit easier for their shopping needs.

The whole point? It helps to boost that customer loyalty and engagement that every business needs. Regardless of shipping deadlines or if their online and in-store, you become reliable to consumers. And they now can depend on you for each and every season, holiday after holiday.

Use through Campaign Awareness

The major key to successful marketing and branding is running campaigns for your business.

Every business is trying to increase brand awareness and there is no better way to do so than by offering an incentivized tool like gift cards. When getting your campaigns started it helps to work with brand ambassadors. Especially if they also have a great target audience they can impact when highlighting the campaign.

A great campaign is one that is personalized to the consumer, thoughtful, and causes the consumer to rave about it to others. Word of mouth is a powerful thing! And it’s well known that any business that can obtain the friend of a consumer is one deserving of customer loyalty.

Nothing drives customer loyalty like knowing you’re friends and family also indulge in the products and services of a business. Thinking about starting your own campaign? Challenge customers who just utilized your services or products to send in photos or post a review and offer a gift card.

Simple as 1, 2, 3!

Social Media Contests for the Win

Social media platforms, like Instagram, are famously known for the impact and growth on a business.

It is a great tool to use when trying to connect your business with your target audience. This is especially true when you offer the chance to win something for free. Everyone wants to be a winner with an ounce of hope to be chosen! Social media contests and giveaways can easily be done using e-gift cards.

The way to make sure this is effective is to first show your audience the worth of the win. Provide a sturdy yet attractive price that is within your budget, of course. This will make others repost according to the contest rules.

Make sure your rules are simple, easy to follow, and hassle-free. Stay active when running your contest. Engage with your audience whether the response is good or bad.

You’ll be sure to build that customer loyalty by using gift cards for your next social media contest!

Win Their Hearts with Gift Cards

Think of gift cards as the new innovative tool. A tool to catapult your hair business in the industry and connect with customers on a new level.

By utilizing the power of gift cards through various strategies, your customer loyalty is sure to expand over time. Are you a business owner? Comment below and share some ways gift cards has helped to expand and elevate your business!