How to build a loyalty club for your food brand

Let’s back up—WHY build a loyalty club for your food brand?

Here are a few quick reasons:

• Loyalty clubs help to keep customers engaged with your brand, which in turn keeps your brand top-of-mind in that buying category.
• Customers who subscribe to your loyalty club may interact and/or share referrals on social media, or recommend your brand via word of mouth.
• Your loyalty club acts as a direct line from you to your customers.
• Retaining customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new customers.
• A strong loyalty club gives you access to valuable insights and customer data on your core demographic.

The second question is, HOW do I build a loyalty club?

In the world of digital-advertising overload we currently live in, customers are leery of giving out their personal contact information for many reasons. Here are a few starter tips:

1. Make your offer worth your ask.

If you’re asking someone to give out their personal information, you need to give them something they deem “worth it”. That will mean different things to different people. Some people LOVE a good “chance to win” giveaway, while others just prefer coupons, or rewards points. It is good to offer a few different reasons to join your club, in order to appeal to different types of customers. Recipe ideas are great, but they are less than a dime a dozen. It will likely take more to entice your consumers.

Make sure you’re asking for the information most valuable to you. What do you want to know about your customers? Focus on just a handful of the most important items. Asking for their name and email address only may get you a bunch of sign-ups, but that information alone is not very valuable. Instead, try to provide an incentive worthy of the information you really need. Things like:

• Age
• Gender
• Address or Zip code
• Phone number

Be sure you’re only asking for what you need. You will have the opportunity to survey this group of people later, right now you’re wanting to collect demographics only. Keep it short and sweet to avoid turning people away.

2. Provide multiple channels for your customers to enroll

• • Always include a place to sign up for the loyalty club on your website. Be upfront about the content that they will receive upon sign up and stick to that.
  • If a customer is following you on your social media, they are more likely to join your loyalty club—IF they know about it! Post reminders about any perks or exclusive content members of your loyalty club can enjoy.
  • Include information or an avenue to sign up for your loyalty club on the back of your packaging. These customers may have already purchased your product, meaning they know and trust your brand—why wouldn’t they want all the perks?
  • Consider using your coupons to promote your loyalty club. Digital coupons are an especially savvy way to do this. You may set up your digital coupon to link directly to the loyalty club sign-up page with a coupon provided upon sign-up. Additionally, you may consider printing the URL for the sign-up page on your printed coupons. These customers are already using your coupons, they may be likely to sign up for more!
  • Regardless of which method your customer uses to sign up, you may consider incentivizing those who sign up with an instant reward.

3. Don’t break their trust

Don’t let your loyalty club backfire. What is the quickest way to lose a follower, or worse, a loyal customer? Spam them with irrelevant content or bombard them with content too often.

If you have multiple brands, keep them separate. Make separate lists and NEVER add customers to a list they didn’t sign up for. Cross-selling is acceptable at times, but keep it limited and always relevant.

Did you enjoy this blog about how to build a loyalty club for your food brand? Then stick around for more content, like our next blog, “How to Best Use Your Food Brand’s Loyalty Club”

If you have any questions about how to build your loyalty club, please reach out to the NewPoint team. If you are interested in more food brand marketing topics, please visit our Food for Thought page or check out NewPoint’s Patrick Nycz’s book: Moving Your Brand Up the Food Chain.