Earning shoppers’ loyalty during the holidays might be even harder than it is during the rest of the year. While some consumers are busy, stressed, and looking for a reliable purchase from a retailer they know, others are hunting for deals and the next cool, new gift. A Google survey noted that during the 2014 holiday season, more than 50% of shoppers were willing to shop with a new business, and 41% of shoppers actually did so. That’s why holiday customer loyalty must be a priority for anyone looking to survive the season.

Customer loyalty programs help you focus on retaining existing customers through incentives, coupons, prizes, and customizable rewards. Acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than retaining the existing ones so it’s crucial to focus on your best customers and drive more purchases and advocacy through them. When you’re working with a loyalty program, ensuring holiday customer loyalty is a much more streamlined and simple process. With this holiday customer loyalty cheat sheet, you’ll have one less thing to worry about.

Strategize Your Holiday Customer Loyalty Plan

• Analyze your current customer data to find the triggers that inspire them to take action
• Create some compelling rewards based on these triggers such as coupons, discounts or products
•  Create enticing offers to increase new loyalty enrollments
• Terms and Conditions should be properly framed to avoid any sort of confusion and conflicts

Promote Your Program

• Visibility is of utmost importance, create attractive calls to action that draw attention to your loyalty program without hampering your customer’s experience
• Place the rewards and benefits in the forefront to increase engagement
• Utilize a dedicated loyalty program landing page

Boost Holiday Customer Loyalty with Enhanced Tactics

• Make your existing loyalty members feel special by creating custom offers and rewards
• Re-ignite inactive customers during the holiday season with special and more lucrative rewards such as larger than average discount codes or short-term tiered reward systems
• Take it to the next level by activating your loyalty program on a multi-channel level
• Run the campaign at every possible touch points so that customers can earn and redeem their loyalty rewards no matter where or how they’re shopping
• Tie loyalty into your other marketing strategies, for example run a special visual commerce campaign and reward users with points for the images and videos they share. You can also tie loyalty into your holiday campaigns and encourage customers to join or participate.
• Ask for new enrollments by highlighting the extensive rewards loyalty members can earn
• Give your loyalty program members early access to special holiday sales or special product promotions

Enhance your loyalty program this holiday season and make it the perfect present for both you and your customers. Keep in mind, loyal customers are good for your business not only because they are a continuous source of revenue but, because they are your best advocates. A loyal customer’s endorsement is more powerful than any advertising campaign.

Check out this post for more holiday loyalty marketing ideas and discover the biggest retail trends for holiday 2016!