IN this era of social media and digitalisation, digital loyalty cards are becoming more prevalent. Marketing research has shown that loyalty programmes have helped businesses increase their brand popularity.

Customer loyalty programmes enhance customer retention and generate new channels of revenue.

In the last couple of years, even small businesses have taken to digital loyalty programmes and issued loyalty cards as a way of promoting their businesses.

However, not all businesses will benefit from digital loyalty programmes. You need to understand your business requirements and the kind of customers it attracts to determine if a digital loyalty programme will come in handy for promoting your business.

If a customer loyalty programme works for your business, both you and your customers can benefit from it. You meet your desired sales targets, and your customers get the discounts.

For small businesses, a loyalty programme can help to build stronger customer relationships, giving you as a business a cutting edge over your competitors.

You can also accumulate data from the loyalty programmes to understand customer buying patterns. This information collected will help you, as a small business, tailor your catalogues or services in ways that will improve the customer experience.

Traditionally, businesses made use of a punch card system as a way of a loyalty programme but, with the advances in technology and mobile phones, loyalty programmes have evolved. Digital loyalty programmes are convenient, easy to track, record and are also user-friendly. You can do the same thing as a punch card would do, and more.

Along with aiding big business houses, digital loyalty programmes can cater to the revenue of small businesses as well. Some of the ways small businesses can benefit from a digital loyalty programme are as follows:

• The programme can assist to promote the business in a better way.
• Helps to acquire sticky customers.
• Helps in generating better revenues.
• If the business does not have a robust analytics system, with the help of simple tools, the business can utilise the digital loyalty programme to draw better insights on the sales of products or services.
• Allows the business to curate the products and services as per the customer purchase behaviour and customer requirements.
• Improves the reach of the business.

Just as the whole world has taken to digitalisation, small businesses are also taking up digitalisation to improve their businesses and make better business strategies to generate revenue.

If you are a part of a small business and you are not sure if a digital loyalty programme will work for you, try to understand the problem statement. If your expected result from the digital loyalty programme is aligned with your business goal, it is sure to be a success.

You must go ahead with the digital loyalty programme but, in case you feel the result of the digital loyalty programme might not be aligned to your business goal, think twice before implementing it in your business. In this case, you might end up incurring losses or not making any profit for that matter.

Understanding your business and the expectations of your customers is the key to deciding whether this will work in your favour or not. When the world is taking up the digital loyalty programme, it is time that you considered it for your business too; see if you can make it work in your favour.

Please note that the above is for information purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. As each individual’s personal circumstances vary, were commend they seek advice on the matter. Please note that while every effort is made to ensure accuracy, Nexia SAB&T does not accept responsibility for any inaccuracies or errors contained herein. If you are in doubt about any information in this article or require any advice on the topical matter, please do not hesitate to contact any Nexia SAB&T office nationally.