Powering the Future of Customer Loyalty
It’s no secret that customer loyalty programs are in a bit of a rut. Many customers are tired of hoarding points that never seem to add up to anything, and brands are struggling to find ways to make their programs more engaging. I personally have a drawer full of physical cards with various stamps and punches that I never look at even though I know that there may be a free sandwich or discount on ski equipment somewhere in the pile. Luckily, Web3 technology is emerging as a driving force behind the revitalization of customer loyalty and brand engagement.
What is “Web3” in the context of brand loyalty?
While most people hear the terms Web3 or NFT and think of digital avatars, speculative trading platforms, and celebrities who have bought or sold animal cartoons (for amounts that no one can seem to justify), the real value of Web3 lies in the way that data can be stored, accessed, and verified. For brands, this means a better way to build a social-customer relationship outside of the databases owned and gatekept by the social media giants.
Web3 in the context of loyalty programs essentially builds upon the technology trail blazed by the recent NFT craze to solve a real business problem: Empowering businesses to forge their own direct connections with their biggest supporters. While we may stop referring to these digital assets as “NFTs” one thing is certain, the vast majority of businesses will incorporate NFTs (call them what you will) in their customer loyalty strategy in the near future.
The Benefits of Web3
By leveraging Web3 to power customer loyalty, brands can easily tap into multiple targeted engagement tools at any point in time. With traditional loyalty programs, customers tend to only interact with a brand when they’re making a purchase, and even that interaction is often limited to the point of sale, occasional emails, and traditional mailers (the latter two are rarely, if ever, opened so it’s hard to call them “interactions”).
Web3 has the potential to create a more durable, personal, and relevant connection between the holder of a digital asset and the creator (in this case a brand). While early implementations of the technology only provided identification in the form of a blockchain wallet addresses (a long anonymous string of letters and numbers), brand tools like Cloutchain offer a connection portal that identifies and connects brands to their digital collectible holders, complete with tools to easily sort, filter, and communicate with their loyal customers any time. This is important because increasing the frequency and relevance of digital outreach will drive an increase in customer lifetime value and brand loyalty.
Adding a Web3 Component to Your Overall Strategy
By leveraging tools like Cloutchain, businesses can be much more strategic with their marketing and engagement spend. Brands can now direct high-touch or high-cost engagement campaigns straight toward their biggest fans who will appreciate it the most and who will organically respond the most vocally.
To put it another way: A winter sports brand should not give away one of their newest, limited edition snowboards on a traditional social media channel. If they do, they will have to pay to boost the giveaway just to have it be shown to a seemingly random slice of their existing following.
Instead, they can offer that premium giveaway to their Cloutchain community. This will ensure that the board is won by an actual fan of the brand and won’t end up on eBay the next morning. In addition, a winner who is also a huge fan of the brand is much more likely to celebrate the outcome publicly — driving better organic reach and content. The end result is an increase in ROI on marketing spend and an increase in organic traditional reach, driven by happier fans.
A Better Experience for Fans
When asked, nearly 80% of people stated that they would be willing to pay more for a better customer experience from the brands they like. This is not surprising. Most people have at least a few brands that they love and identify with. Whether food, fitness, fashion, entertainment, or lifestyle, the brands that we choose to rock and represent often say something about us. They can become part of our identity in a way.
So what should a premium loyalty experience look like for a brand champion? While it depends on the brand, the most important thing is that the heightened engagement be relevant and valuable to the participants. This can be hard to do with outdated tools like email lists and point-of-sale points. The future of brand engagement involves much more brand/fan collaboration and more direct community building — traditional social media platfroms are simply not built to foster these core values.
Cloutchain blends familiar elements from social media, paywall sites, trading cards, and traditional loyalty programs to deliver a modern active engagement channel for fans. Brands can share discounts, promotions, giveaways, exclusive updates, videos, music, and more with their fans and they can target and filter that engagement based on how dedicated or active a fan is. This results in a fan seeing a fast paced, rewarding feed of highly relevant content that is personalized based on how involved and active that customer is with a brand.
Wrapping Up
Customer loyalty programs are often seen as outdated and not worth the time for many consumers, but thanks to the ongoing evolution of Web3, they are being revitalized and reformed into something better. By integrating Cloutchain into your overall loyalty strategy, your brand can increase customer lifetime value and provide a better experience for your raving fans — a win-win for everyone involved!
Get started for free today by signing up at cloutchain.io
