Stay true to your brand, your store and yourself
After discussing Discovery and Inventory, we have come full circle. Introducing Eligma’s third and final pillar, Loyalty. Before diving into Eligma, let us take a look at loyalty programs.
What are loyalty programs and what purpose do they serve?
Loyalty programs are structured marketing strategies designed by merchants to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of businesses associated with each program by offering them incentives. First loyalty programs began as early as 1793, when a U.S. merchant started giving out copper tokens, which could be collected by consumers and exchanged for items in the store. Throughout history they took many forms, e.g. trading stamps, boxtops, prizes and coupons, but are since mostly used in the form of loyalty cards and more recently QR codes and NFC technologies that can be easily and effectively introduced to mobile devices. By using them, consumers typically earn discounts or points they can use for future purchases. By applying for such loyalty programs, consumers disclose their personal data to merchants, who use that data for marketing research. Over time it can reveal patterns and habits in consumers’ behaviour. Merchants can then identify consumers’ favourite brands and products and adjust their marketing targeting strategies. Since loyalty programs are commonplace and there is a vast number of merchants out there, our wallets cannot fit all the loyalty cards anymore. We sign up for so many loyalty programs that we tend to lose track of them and do not utilize them to their maximum extent or not at all.
Almost half of all loyalty programs are established in the retail industry and one of their main drawbacks is that they are not connected and not monetary by nature. It was established that the average American was a member of at least 10 different loyalty programs in 2016, but more than half of those memberships remained inactive. Experts predict that this participation rate will continue to decline if retailers do not find more imaginative ways to reward their customers.
Source: Marketing charts, “There are an estimated 3.8 billion individual loyalty program memberships in the US. More than half are inactive.”
A decentralized unified loyalty program
Eligma aims to rectify this issue by introducing an integrated decentralized unified loyalty program. What that rather complicated phrase means is that consumers will not have to register with separate loyalty programs and think of dozens of credential sets and point amounts. Eligma will introduce its utility token, ELI, that will act as a loyalty program value holder. Consumers will be able to earn coins from every member of our loyalty program, be it online or offline, and spend those tokens at any other member of the program, meaning they will be able to take advantage of our loyalty program to the maximum possible extent. They will also be able to earn tokens by performing actions on the platform, referring other users and new online stores or buying them on an online exchange. In time, Eligma will offer certain services and products, only purchasable with ELI tokens.
This will create a growing community that will be earning and spending ELI tokens, thus forming a healthy ELI economy. Merchants will be motivated to become a part of our loyalty program and tap into this community by introducing new innovative ways to use our tokens. In turn, consumers will be incentivized to take advantage of these offers, creating an ever-turning loop of merchants and consumers joining our loyalty program that will fuel the constant growth of the platform.
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