By Annika Brebion, Account Director

It will be come as no surprise to you when I say: “One of the key elements of a successful loyalty program is communication”. But what, how and when should you communicate, you wonder….?

Let’s remind ourselves why you decided to invest in your B2B loyalty program:

1.     To create a sense of loyalty (to ensure your channel partners pick your products and services over your competitors)

2.     To create a sense of belonging (to ensure your channel partners feel privileged and special about being in your program)

3.     To drive your sales (using the above two elements to create a position of influence over your partners buying/selling behaviour)

Thus, to obtain this sense of loyalty and belonging from your channel partners, your most powerful tool is the proper use of communication.

The obvious and most traditional means of communication in any loyalty program is to send regular email alerts (or EDMs) to your participants. The content for these can cover:

• Monthly account statements (showing points earned, pending, or redeemed)

• Anniversary emails

• Seasonal greetings

• Event/Product announcements

• Promotions

But as I said, emails are used by most loyalty programs, most online shops, any website where you opted in for a newsletter, your gym, your dog food supplier, etc. None of these emails make you feel special. You and me, we all receive about 3-20 of these messages a week.

So, how do we differentiate ourselves from other vendors with our B2B loyalty program?

By reminding ourselves that we are in fact not trying to sell to our channel partners, but to build a connection with them. Our communications must therefore be different from sales platforms and while the above email examples can and should be used in your program, let’s put a different spin on them. 

MAKE A CONNECTION

1.     Make sure your participants are the first to hear about an event, a product launch, a certification, or learning opportunity

2.     Use your program portal for local holiday greetings

3.     Combine a local holiday greeting with a promotion

4.     Reward your partners for desired behaviour, such as “thank you for attending the product launch, here are 50 points”

5.     Dedicate time and patience to replying to helpdesk tickets. This is your 1:1 with your partners, your prime-time opportunity. Where possible, do not use standard replies but reply to each individual with care and devotion

6.     Give your participants the opportunity to provide feedback – ask how do they feel about this program? Communication as a 2-way street

7.      When preparing an email communication, ask yourself, would you stop and smile, or stop and look up from this message?

8.      Have an easy to locate and easy to understand FAQ document ready for your partners. Enhance this document with questions you frequently get.

As a general rule you may find the following Do’s and Don’ts useful:

DO

• Use interesting and where possible entertaining imagery

• Use a tonality that shows you are professional, but that you also care

• Be targeted in your approach

• Use the local language

• See each Email communication as an opportunity to pass on a message of importance

DON’T

• Send too many emails

• Use confusing wording

• Use standard, generic language

• Repeat your message

Communication is your most powerful tool in a loyalty program, but if not used properly, your partners will stop reading your messages. As opposed to a pure sales platform, in a B2B loyalty program you should only ‘speak’ to your participants when you have something to say. Communication should be personable, simple, fact based and pleasant. Isn’t that the kind of communication you would look forward to reading? Granted, this approach requires more work, it cannot be automated, but it will set you apart from the rest. I promise, it will!