Covid-19 is continuing to cause chaotic and challenging business conditions where many industry sectors are forced to close, suspend or modify their trading options. But now is the time to invest in your loyalty strategy. Rather than reducing focus and suspending elements of your loyalty program, this is the time for vigorous planning and innovative programme design so that companies are in the prime position to cash in on the tsunami of pent-up demand that will follow when the virus has passed.

Use the current downturn as an opportunity to conduct research among your loyalty program participants. The downturn caused by Covid-19 and government efforts to contain the pandemic is set to continue for the foreseeable future for many industry sectors. But there are ways you can turn this downtime into an opportunity for your B2B loyalty and incentive program, even if your sales have taken a nose dive.

As Covid-19 continues to create chaotic and challenging business condition’s many industry sectors have seen a collapse in sales and huge downturns in trading. Lack of sales is like a horror movie for all businesses. And if your company has a loyalty programme, how can you maintain participant engagement, when the core concept of rewarding for sales has been eliminated?

The answer is to use this downtime as an opportunity.

How can you give resellers and business partners in your distribution channel a competitive edge and persuade them to sell your products rather than those of a rival vendor?

The answer is ‘enablement’ – in other words, you need to give your resellers the skills and product knowledge to sell your solution or services effectively to their end customer. But how do you convince stakeholders to invest?

Gamification is the use of game-play mechanics for non-game applications and there are many case studies illustrating the increased motivation when game elements are incorporated into work activities. The closed nature of the audience and our access to detailed analytics allows us to precisely manage the effectiveness of the use of games in our programmes.  

Loyalty programs will increasingly reflect growing awareness of climate change and global social issues – for example members could exchange their points for ‘responsible’ rewards. And creating a Game of Thrones comms strategy could be an ideal way to grab your loyalty program participants’ attention.

Is a loyalty program right for your business?

Like any marketing strategy, loyalty programs have a place and an ideal environment in which they should be deployed and managed. So, it is important for firms to undertake a detailed diagnostic assessment to see whether a loyalty program is the best marketing strategy for their product or service, as opposed to rushing to set up a program in the hope that it will solve all your business challenges. 

Here are 3 reasons why a loyalty program may not be right for your product or industry:

Voluntary executive learning is an important element of many B2B loyalty and channel programs. Indeed the cost effectiveness that the digital revolution has offered to program sponsors allows for the deployment of online e-learning modules quickly, covering remote geographies and in multiple languages.

Whilst the digital revolution encompassing online platforms has heralded a new age in corporate learning, the advancement in learning structure and content has not moved at the same pace.

Try these 3 tactics to accelerate the journey from enrollment to engagement in your loyalty program and thus minimize the period that a newly enrolled participant spends in the chasm of disengagement and go into "Walking Dead" status. 

‘Social Loyalty’ has been gaining momentum over the past five years as an effective strategy to drive engagement, enablement and sales performance. Interestingly, many companies are still slow to embrace social media into their loyalty programs due to concerns that  they cannot control the conversation. However,  it is now apparent that participation,  as opposed to control, is the most effective way to drive participant behavior.

 The odds were certainly favourable for Motivforce’s latest Loyalty Leadership Forum which took place at the historic Jockey Club Rooms in Newmarket, Suffolk, home of British horseracing. Building on the unbridled success of previous Forums, the event provided an ideal opportunity for Motivforce’s loyalty experts to showcase the latest B2B loyalty trends and share their wisdom with clients and channel marketeers

Loyalty and incentive programs attract, motivate and reward your best customers and there is no doubt that they can be very powerful marketing tools – their success has been well documented in industry case studies, academic literature and loyalty marketing awards programs.

Your best customers are the ones that listen to and respond to your loyalty promise.  But delivering on that promise is highly dependent on structuring an effective program. All too often loyalty programs fail to deliver their promise not only to participants; they also fail to meet the high expectations of senior management.

Thus, to deliver on the ‘spectacle’ of a loyalty program, it’s vital we work on the ‘science’ behind it. Here are 8 key elements to applying this science.

Thinking of launching a loyalty program? But you don’t know where to start? Try running a pilot program!

 Loyalty programs are a long-term strategy. Getting them launched requires the strategy to be embraced and signed off by the entire organization, including finance, operations, sales and marketing. Each of these departments has their own agenda and expectations as to what the loyalty program will deliver. This ongoing internal assessment can delay the launch of a program for years, and prevent the company from enjoying the benefits that a well-structured loyalty and incentive program can deliver.

When planning a destination for your incentive travel rewards program,  a number of things must be considered to ensure its success. The question will be raised “How do I choose the correct destination for incentive travel reward?” This is where a professional incentive travel agency can assist by providing a wealth of knowledge and suitable options based on your program requirements budget and the target audience.

Today’s program managers are conceding that the constant desire for global standardization has reached an inflection point where there still needs to be a high level of local customization. This is despite procurement and finance departments thinking that even more efficiencies can be derived from global program operations resulting in year on year cost savings.

Whilst a lot of time and money is spent creating brand and positioning, little effort is spent on developing the “loyalty avatar” that will be used to communicate to  program participants, both formally and informally.

Every company needs them; re-seller top dogs. They drive success, they show others how it’s done, they collect the rewards, they stash the cash, they may come to expect the white glove treatment. At the same time, it is becoming clear that incentivizing these star business partners also has a dark side. And it is good for companies that run performance incentive programs for their channel partners to be aware of this.

It seems that the 2018 obituary for offline communications and tactics in loyalty and channel incentives programs has been premature. Indeed, we have seen an increase in program sponsors allocating budgets to offline executions during the first eight months of 2018, signaling a retreat from the sole reliance on digital communications.

One of the growing challenges facing all loyalty practitioners is how to drive higher levels of engagement. Traditional methods such as bonus points and bespoke communications, whilst still effective, are losing their impact, particularly when competitor loyalty programs are also engaging in these tactics.

Just in case you might have missed it; a wind of change has started to blow in the loyalty marketing landscape. In Europe the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is about to go live and it marks a heightened privacy consciousness among businesses and their customers. And ultimately, we expect that the principles of GDPR will go global.

Even if you are not operating from the EU, it is not a bad idea to start reflecting on what the new model of data protection will mean for you and your program. Almost certainly, the bar will be raised and your program members will expect you to take your protection of their data to a whole new level.

So, are you GDPR ready? Read on