Four Considerations when Designing a Reward Program

There are many different types of reward programs which make it challenging to choose which one is best suited for your brand. Ultimately, there are four considerations to always keep in mind when designing a program.

1. Design for “Silver” customers. These are your 50^th to 80^th percentile customers. They are your regulars, visiting your store while purchasing gas and food. But they almost certainly go to other stores as well. By targeting and motivating these customers an opportunity is presented to drive them to visit you more often and for more purchasing occasions.
2. Get customers to their reward, fast. Customers should earn their first reward quickly. When someone enrolls in your program they need to see immediate value in it, meaning that their first reward needs to happen within the next couple of visits so the customer can see the value in being a member. Additionally, silver customers, the customers your program is targeting should be earning their rewards fairly frequently. If you are doing a points program, have low-value redemption options such as coffee or candy that they can earn every five to ten visits, at least.
3. Reward good behavior. Good behavior is whatever your concept wants it to mean, but probably includes a store visit and gas purchase, upgrading to premium gas, or visiting for more purchases, and new day parts. Your program needs to support your corporate goals. If you are trying to compel customers to visit and buy more freshly prepared food, then make sure the program and stores support that initiative.
4. Leverage vendor funding to drive your results. Vendors’ interest are not always well aligned with your bottom line. If their promotion switches volume from, say, Coke to Pepsi, then that’s great for Pepsi. But if it didn’t drive any extra traffic into your store, or any incremental spending, then what did it do for you? Think about whose customer is. They are yours, not the CPS’s. Vendor funding can be used in different and unique ways in order to drive more visits and spend. A good use of vendor funding would be to leverage those funds to drive more purchases of an item and in return, the customer earns bonus points.

Reward programs deliver outstanding financial returns by motivating customers to visit more often and spend more with each visit. Learn more about building a reward program with your customers in mind by watching this webinar “Brilliant! Reward Program Design Principles for Convenience Stores.”