How to create a loyalty scheme for your tourism business
If you’re looking at ways to encourage visitors to return to your destination, attraction, or venue, a loyalty scheme could be the solution. It’s a great way to encourage loyalty to you over your competitors, but you need to get it right.
Here’s how to implement a successful loyalty scheme to keep your visitors hooked.
Firstly, is a loyalty scheme is right for you?
You understand the benefits of a loyalty program, but is this the right move for your destination? Before going any further with your loyalty scheme you need to ensure you answer yes to the following:
Do your visitors return regularly?
Do you have visitors that float between you and another destination?
Can you afford to offer a reasonable loyalty bonus to make it worth their while without damaging your margins?
Can you deliver on your loyalty promise?
If you answer no to any of these questions or your visitors goes years before returning, it might not be right for you.
Define your target audience
There is no point spending money on your loyalty scheme until you know who you’re targeting with it.
Think about:
How old are they?
What gender are they?
What are their hobbies?
Where do they live?
What is their income?
Why do they visit?
Once you’ve created your avatar(s) you can tailor loyalty material to them. This will help you to connect to your audience and increase the take up of your loyalty scheme.
What is your offer?
Now, there are several options on what you can offer your customers for their loyalty.
Here’s a few suggestions:
A free visit after they have been so many times before
A free gift with their ticket purchase
A loyalty discount on ticket purchases
A VIP area with free drinks
The choice is yours! What you do need to consider is what can you afford to offer without your profits taking a hit and whether you need the offer to be seasonal.
Create Your Loyalty System
Once you know your target audience and have worked out the best reward for your loyal customers, it’s time to put your new loyalty system into action.
Firstly, make sure it’s clear how they earn their loyalty reward. This could be by:
Clocking up a number of visits/purchases - e.g. one free after your 10th purchase
Build credits or points with each purchase - e.g. 1 point for every £10 spent
Given with their purchase - e.g. free drink when they visit
Special events just for loyalty card holders
Secondly, make sure you’ve got all the bases covered to ensure your customers know about your loyalty programme:
Brief your team! You need to make sure everyone knows about the scheme and how they are to promote it. This could be asking every customer if they have a loyalty card, and offering to sign them up if they haven’t. You may even want to incentivise them - a reward for signing up 10 new loyal customers!
Make sure your offer is generous enough to convert customers into loyal customers. If your offer isn’t strong enough then it may not be worth all the work to implement it.
Follow up with your loyal customers. Once they’ve signed up don’t just assume that’s it. Keep asking if they are members, encourage them to keep buying by reminding them how close they are to receiving that loyalty reward, it will keep them coming back!
Introducing Your Loyalty Scheme
Now you are ready to put your loyalty scheme into action, decide exactly when you are going to offer it to your customers.
It might be that on their first visit you tell them about the loyalty program. Pitch it as a reward for continuing to come again in the future.
If you decide to wait until you’ve seen them a couple of times, this is when you can make them feel more of a VIP. Pitch it as their reward for coming back to you, a thank you for continuing to return as a visitor.
Run Through Your Loyalty Scheme Checklist
You’ve ticked all of the above steps and are ready to launch your loyalty scheme! Here’s the final checklist to ensure your loyalty scheme gets off to a great start:
Make sure all your team are ready. They know what the offer is, who to approach with the offer, and what to tell the customer.
Make sure you are ready to deliver on your promise!
Make sure your product, service, and customer experience is the best it can be.
