Loyalty Program Benefits

The world preaches loyalty, but how many brands actually live it? Last month, I got an invite to something called Summer Smash, 1st Phorm International's invite-only community event in St. Louis. Think three days of HQ tours, private pre-parties, high-energy workouts, rides, and live music from artists like Ludacris, Lil' Jon, Pitbull, and Steve Aoki. The whole thing sells out in under a minute each year. Pure community building at it's finest. I couldn't make it due to personal obligations, but here's what blew me away: they still sent me a surprise box packed with over 10 of their top products (proteins, apparel, energy drinks, protein sticks), plus a handwritten note that felt genuinely personal, not like a marketing ploy. We've gotten so caught up in digital tactics that we've forgotten about the power of high-touch moments that forge actual emotional connections. This kind of follow-through is almost unheard of in today's brand world. Most companies would've moved on to the next person on their list. But 1st Phorm gets something that a lot of brands miss: real loyalty isn't built through campaigns or offers, it's built through experiences that make people feel like they belong to something bigger. That's where lifetime value really takes off. Summer Smash is far beyond just an event; it's the kind of experience that flips the loyalty script entirely, where customers don't just buy, they simply belong. Here's what I think other brands can learn from this approach: ➟ Send unexpected value for no reason. A surprise product or handwritten note shows customers they matter beyond their purchase history. ➟ Build exclusive communities around shared values, not just products. Whether it's in-person events or virtual experiences, give your best customers something they can't get anywhere else. ➟ Create moments people actually talk about. A few hours with A-list talent or behind-the-scenes access beats another discount code every time. ➟ Lead with gratitude, not growth metrics. When thank-you moments drive your strategy instead of the other way around, authenticity follows naturally. The bottom line: loyalty is earned through emotion, experience, and belonging. If your brand isn't building that, you're just another transaction in someone's day. When did you last surprise your customers with something that wasn't even on your roadmap?

I analyzed 100+ loyalty programs in the last 30 days. Most brands still run loyalty like it’s 2009: Earn points, get a discount, repeat. The top 10%? They’re using loyalty to change behavior- not just reward it. If I were Head of Loyalty at a $10B+ brand today, here’s exactly what I’d do to build a program that drives LTV, repeat purchases, and real retention: 1. Stop Giving Away Loyalty - Make Them Pay for It Costco, RH, Barnes & Noble. When customers pay upfront, they buy in - literally and psychologically. Forget free points. Paid memberships = commitment, retention, higher LTV and emotional sunk cost. 2. Make Loyalty Required, Not Optional - Integrate Directly into Payments Starbucks preloads!!! When rewards are embedded in how people pay, behavior shifts faster, and for longer. This is probably the biggest opportunity in loyalty right now. 3. Forget Delayed Points - Instant Gratification is More Important Immediate dopamine beats theoretical future savings. Slow accumulation = slow engagement. Instant offers = repeat behavior. The 2nd purchase matters more than the 10th. 4. Make Loyalty Emotional, Not Transactional REI, North Face, Sephora. Customers want to belong, not just save. Identity, community, and shared values are outperforming cashbacks and discounts in driving long-term loyalty. Loyalty isn’t just a discount strategy, it’s a brand strategy. 5. Invest in Status + Experiences, not Generic Perks This isn't just theory – with companies like Rapha and Lululemon offering loyalty members exclusive product drops, community events and behind-the-scenes experiences. Lean into waitlists and exclusive product drops. Less financial. More status + psychological “being in the club.” 6. Reward Engagement, Not Just Transactions MoxieLash, Pacifica, Lucy & Yak. UGC. Reviews. Referrals. Loyalty now means participation. The modern flywheel starts before checkout - and lasts far beyond it. ~~ Bottom line? If your loyalty program is still playing a game from 15 years ago, your customers are going to find better options. Today, the best brands in 2025 aren’t just rewarding loyalty- they're engineering it. PS: We analyzed 100+ programs across QSR, retail, travel, and fintech. Next week I’ll share the Top 30 loyalty programs leading the way. Stay tuned🙏

One of the biggest takeaways I spotted from Intuit Mailchimp’s analysis of the 2024 holiday shopping season is that the new year is ripe with new opportunities to drive loyalty. Here’s why → 64% of orders from Mailchimp customers with connected stores came from new customers during Cyber Weekend 2024. That's a huge opportunity to grow your loyal customer base! And research we produced with Canvas8 tells us that the best kept secret to driving loyalty is actually grounded in science. Our Loyalty Wheel reveals 4 key drivers of loyalty: 1. Reward: Our brains love rewards. Create a sense of reciprocity by offering exclusive deals, personalized discounts, or early access to new products. 2. Memory: Make it easy for customers to remember (and repeat!) positive experiences with your brand. Design a frictionless customer journey, offer subscriptions for frequently purchased items, and send well-timed reminders. 3. Emotion: Foster an emotional connection that goes beyond transactional exchanges. Align your brand with causes your customers care about, share authentic stories, and build a sense of community. 4. Social Interaction: Encourage customers to share their love for your brand with friends and family. Create opportunities for user-generated content, run refer-a-friend programs, or host exclusive events. And here's how to put it all into action: 🎉 Surprise and delight: Gift your customers with unexpected rewards. And just not generic discounts. Offer exclusive experiences or partner with like-minded brands to create unique offers. 🛝 Streamline every touchpoint: Remove friction in the customer journey with automation. From browsing to purchasing to post-purchase support, make it easy and enjoyable to do business with your brand. 🎯 Prioritize personalization: Craft your messaging and build authentic connections. Use data and AI analysis to understand your customers' values and preferences and use those insights to create content that resonates. 🤗 Give VIP treatment: Make your customers feel like VIPs. Give them early access to new products, invite them to exclusive events, or feature them on your social media channels. Download Mailchimp and Canvas8’s The Science of Loyalty and The Strategic Loyalty Playbook for a deep dive into the science, complete with actionable strategies and inspiring examples: https://bit.ly/49FJayO Make 2025 the year of the loyal customer. You got this.

Way too many e-commerce brands run bare-minimum loyalty programs that don't move the needle. Points. Discounts. It gets old quick. Your top 10% of customers likely drive 40-65% of your profit. But are you treating them like the VIPs they are? Or just sending them the same generic emails as everyone else? Brands that are crushing it right now are building tiered VIP ecosystems that transform transactional shoppers into high-LTV brand advocates. Speaking from 4+ years of experience, I’ve learned a few things that actually work: --> Early access drops that make top customers feel like insiders --> Exclusive product variants unavailable to regular customers --> Private Slack/Discord communities connecting your best customers --> Physical gifts that arrive unexpectedly (not just on birthdays) --> VIP-only virtual events with your founder/designers Data doesn't lie. Well-designed VIP programs consistently deliver 3-5x ROI compared to acquisition campaigns. These programs also cost dramatically less than constantly chasing new customers. Stop treating loyalty like a cost center using discounts, and start treating it like the profit driver it should be, like leveraging experiences, exclusivity, or building relationships. Your competitors are leaving millions on the table with lackluster VIP strategies. The opportunity is massive for brands willing to invest in their best customers the right way. Who's doing VIP programming exceptionally well in your category? Curious to hear some examples.

I used to think I was measuring customer loyalty the right way. Every quarter, I’d report out our NPS score, and every quarter, I’d get the same pushback from leadership: “If our NPS is so high, why are sales down?” “If customers love us, why is churn up?” And honestly? I didn’t have a good answer. I felt dejected as I could feel my credibility and social capital with the execs slip away. I was stuck in the CX trap of measuring advocacy, not behavior. NPS told me customers said they’d recommend us—but it told me nothing about whether they’d actually buy from us again. The lightbulb moment came when I stopped chasing how much customers liked us and started tracking how much they actually spent. That’s when I realized: Loyalty isn’t a feeling. It’s a behavior. So, I pivoted. Instead of leading with NPS, I built our CX strategy around three core metrics that actually predict revenue: 🔺 Likelihood to Purchase Again (Intent) – Are they signaling they’ll come back? 🔺 Repeat Purchase Rate (Behavioral) – Are they actually returning? 🔺 Time to Repeat Purchase (Behavioral) – How long does it take? And guess what happened? 💡 Our CX efforts finally had credibility in the boardroom. When we improved post-purchase experience, I could prove it led to faster repeat purchases. 💡 Marketing and Finance finally saw CX as a growth lever. Instead of reporting on ‘customer happiness,’ I was driving revenue conversations. 💡 We made better investments. Instead of obsessing over ‘improving NPS,’ we focused on shortening the time to second purchase—and sales shot up. The reality is: NPS won’t save you when revenue is down. If you want to be taken seriously as a CX leader, you have to connect the dots between emotion, intent, and action. It’s time to stop measuring how much customers like you and start measuring how much they buy from you. If you’ve had this realization too, let’s talk. Let’s get your CX unf*cked.

This is how to drive loyalty with your offline customers 👇 As always, we like to think about everything from the customer journey. What do we know? Customers want a seamless journey & experience with the brand, regardless of where they shop. That’s where Brij comes in – bringing customers into your direct ecosystem regardless of where they’ve shopped. But then you want to provide a value transfer – often in the form of loyalty points or rewards. Enter Yotpo. Brij and Yotpo work together to transform retail shoppers into loyal, digital customers. Let’s take a look at how these platforms complement each other to create a seamless, data-driven customer journey. 👇 1️⃣ Capture First-Party Data with Brij Brij bridges the gap between retail & digital by capturing first-party data from retail customers. Whether it’s product registration, rebates, or sweepstakes, Brij ensures that customers who buy your product in-store don’t stay anonymous. 2️⃣ Activate with Yotpo Once Brij captures key data points (like email addresses), Yotpo steps in to activate them. These customers are seamlessly enrolled in loyalty programs, receive personalized SMS campaigns, & get targeted for post-purchase review requests. But what does this look like in practice? Here’s an example from Health-Ade who uses both Brij and Yotpo. It all starts when a customer picks up a bottle of Health-Ade at Whole Foods. They’re driven to a Brij-powered experience where they can: Place an order online to stay stocked up. Learn more about the beverage and its benefits. Most importantly, enroll in a rewards program designed exclusively for retail purchases. Here’s the magic: Brij captures their email & seamlessly passes it to Health-Ade’s rewards program, powered by Yotpo. Suddenly, that once-anonymous retail shopper is earning points for their in-store purchases. They’re getting personalized offers and updates via email and SMS, building a stronger connection with the brand. But here’s the game-changer: this rewards program isn’t for online purchases—it’s designed to drive retail velocity. Not only are we bringing offline customers into the digital ecosystem, but we’re also closing the loop by incentivizing more in-store purchases. Brij and Yotpo ensure that every retail interaction leads to deeper engagement and higher sales across channels. Using Brij and Yotpo together means no customer interaction goes to waste. Whether they buy in-store or online, you convert, engage, and retain them across all channels. If you’re curious how this synergy could work for your brand, let’s connect. 💬 Tomer Tagrin. Omri Cohen Danna Rabin Sheridan Smith Samantha Felgoise Asaf Frige Liz Stack Guliaeva Logan Tessler Kara Sahota Ethan Cohen Amanda Kwasniewicz Daniel Cestone Itai Bengal Katharine Mancini Ofer Karp Anna Alaverdian Galit Peled🎗️Ally Moore Will Hofmann Kim Winter Kaila Zimmerman Shelby Levine Glory Norman Katie McKeever Jeff Cooper #sweepstakes #rewards #loyalty

"Points for purchases" is killing your brand. That's what Phil C., CEO of Upzelo, told me during our recent Chew On This episode. And after seeing the data from 4,000+ brands, I believe him. Here's what's actually working in loyalty and retention → Phil's journey is fascinating. Before Upzelo, he built the world's largest fitness platform with a 1.45% churn rate. Now he's helping brands reimagine loyalty programs. What he taught us: While most DTC brands are still playing the points game, they're bleeding customer value and watching CAC skyrocket. Instead, here are 3 strategies to ensure your loyalty program brings value to your customers and your brand: 1. Stop Chasing Transactions Traditional approach: Points for purchases Modern approach: Reward customer success Phil shared how one UK brand connected health data to their loyalty program. Every workout became a reason to engage, not just every purchase. 2. Meet Customers in Real Life Your customers don't live inside your Shopify store. One of Phil's clients, a motorcycle gear company, built their entire program around Saturday group rides. The result? 3,500 new program members in 3 weeks. No email blasts. No ads. Just organic sharing between riders. 3. Measure Real Impact Drop these vanity metrics: - Program signups - Points earned - Reward redemptions Instead, track what drives growth: - Purchase frequency - Category adoption - Real-world sharing 4. Goal achievement At Obvi, we're already seeing the impact of this approach. When we shifted from points-based rewards to focusing on customer fitness goals and results, our retention impact transformed. The Big Revelation → The best loyalty programs don't feel like programs at all. They feel like a natural extension of why customers chose you in the first place. Want to build real loyalty in 2024? Stop trying to buy it with points.  Start earning it by helping customers succeed. Huge thanks to Phil Carr for sharing these insights from his work with over 4,000 brands. Want the full playbook? Check out our Chewonthis DTC episode where we break down: - Moving beyond transactional loyalty - Building retention through real-life connections - Measuring what actually drives growth

Most brands reward customers for what they buy. H&M is rewarding them for who they become! This is the shift we’re seeing in the smartest loyalty programs today. Loyalty is not just about purchases or spends, it is about behavior! Let's take a look at H&M’s Conscious Points model, built into its free membership program. Sure, at H&M, members earn points when they shop. But they also earn rewards for sustainable actions, such as recycling clothes, using eco-friendly delivery, and skipping single-use bags. ♻️ So, why does this approach work? 📌 It turns values into action - Customers don’t just hear about H&M’s sustainability goals. They become an integral part of it, every time they engage. 📌 It drives smarter personalization - The program collects data on members’ sustainability choices, allowing H&M to tailor offers, messaging, and incentives based on what each customer actually cares about. 📌 It deepens emotional loyalty - When your customer believes their actions with your brand are making a positive impact, they stick around for more than just the discount. 📌 It tackles head-on, a key criticism of fast fashion, that it adversely affects the environment. So how do you apply this to your business? Ask yourself: → What actions (not just purchases) do you want to encourage in your customers? → What deeper purpose or value does your brand stand for? → How can your membership program turn the answers to above, into a daily habit for your customer? Because the next era of loyalty programs isn’t about accumulating points. It’s about building a shared identity between the brand and the buyer. That’s how H&M is turning fashion into a movement - one conscious customer at a time. #hm #membershipprogram #memberships #ecommerce

Most ag retailers track ROI. But almost no one is tracking RoX (Return on Experience). And we should be. In retail, experience is the only thing that sets you apart. RoX doesn’t measure how customers feel. It measures what they do, and whether those actions are driving margin, loyalty, and growth. Here’s the formula: RoX = (High-Value Customer Impact × Category Capture × Pricing Power Behavior) ÷ Experience Investment Let’s break that down: 1. High-Value Customer Impact Are your top customers growing faster, spending more, and sticking longer because of the way you serve them? Look at: • % of revenue from your top 10% of customers • Growth rate of those customers year over year • How many of them are upgrading to higher-margin products 2. Category Capture Are you actually gaining share in the market or just hoping to ride the wave? Look at: • New demand in your region, how much are you winning? • Per capita sales by zip code • Share of wallet within your best customer segments 3. Pricing Power Behavior Are your customers choosing you when they could buy cheaper? Look at: • % of revenue from premium-priced SKUs • Average price per unit compared to others in your market • How often customers reorder without incentives 4. Experience Investment How much time, money, and energy are you spending to actually earn those behaviors? Think about: • Agronomist time per grower • Resources behind onboarding, in-season support, and field-level trust • Tech, tools, and training that make your offer worth paying more for. ——————————- This isn’t a feel-good score. It’s a business metric built for a market where sameness is the default and only differentiation gets rewarded. Because if you’re not earning the right to be chosen, you’re just one competitor away from being replaced. Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers. #agretail #agtech #marketing

Back with some eye opening stats on how restaurants think about their ability to access and use data. These are again from our fabulous report with Nation's Restaurant News, in conjunction with co-sponsors Square and SMG, on loyalty, data, and tech trends in the space. • 42% of brands say that their ability to collect and use data is either not developed or early stage • Only 35% track order history from online orders (less than half of brands who have a loyalty program actively track this as well(!!)) • 19% of brands don't know or are not sure where their guest data is stored (this is the second largest category, behind POS, and higher than CRM at 15%). We are still so early when it comes to data maturity for the restaurant industry - especially customer data. Many restaurants rightly struggle with access, understanding, and action - especially when it comes to data around non-loyalty guests. Often times, the loyalty program is the only source of data for a brand. But here is how we've seen brands on Bikky leverage both sets - the anonymous, in-store guest data, alongside first-party loyalty data: ➡️ Understanding the lifetime value of loyalty vs. non-loyalty guests (anecdotally a few brands have shared that it's 6-8x higher). This is a great proxy when your CEO / CFO asks "what's the ROI of our program?", or when a franchisee says "I don't push loyalty because it's just about discounts." ➡️ Understanding how frequency or average check change when a guest switches from a non-loyalty to loyalty. A good proxy for measuring the incrementality of the loyalty program on an existing guest. ➡️ Measuring the churn of a pure loyalty guest vs. a purely in-store guest. A good proxy for understanding the "stickiness" of someone who first visits your brand through the loyalty program vs. a traditional ordering channel. This helps emphasize the loyalty program's role in driving long-term guest retention. ➡️ Understanding which menu items are popular with loyalty guests vs. first-time non-loyalty guests. A perfect opportunity for marketing to bring actionable ideas to ops and franchisees on what to promote to the guest in-store (instead of just falling back on your best sellers). Successfully using guest data will be a critical restaurant capability in the future. The business (and consumer and competitive landscape) has evolved too much in the past 3-4 years for it *not* to matter anymore. 🫡