Exploring the intersection of technology & marketing psychology

What resonates with your customers? What triggers their decision-making? What accelerates their engagement?

When implemented well, a customer loyalty program should provide your brand with the answers to these questions through valuable insights on customer psyches. A successful loyalty program should also be built around a strategic framework that enhances the customer experience through relevant offers and purposeful interactions—while enabling you to anticipate their actions.

The key? Advanced customization informed by extensive insights on customer data.

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Ignite engagement with unparalleled customization

Customized offers are proven to drive engagement—the rocket fuel for your loyalty program that propels you toward achieving your goals:

• Increase customer spending
• Increase customer frequency
• Build brand affinity and loyalty 

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Predict customer preferences using data & behavioral science

Customization is paramount to the success of every loyalty program—and analytics are the catalyst for individualized offers and compelling customer experiences. For a loyalty program to match your customers with relevant rewards, it requires an intelligent system that anticipates their needs through dynamic scoring.

What is the benefit of a dynamic scoring system? Dynamic scoring sets up your cycle of excellence: The more people use your loyalty program, the more they receive offers that resonate. And the more they receive offers that resonate, the more likely they are to engage. The more they engage, the better your data.

The first step of dynamic scoring is to collect a breadth of behavioral data from individuals—including customer data, transactions, browsing behavior and marketing feedback, such as which offers were accepted, rejected and utilized. Real-time analysis of this data enables the system to understand what types of offers customers want and need. It also places individuals into clusters—people who have similar demographics and behaviors.

Ultimately, these clusters enable the dynamic scoring system to predict which offers best resonate with like-minded customers.

If getting started feels challenging, we can help. Rooted in behavioral science and proven loyalty strategies, our three pillars of engagement represent a unique framework that has guided our platform development, program implementations and technology-driven customer experiences for decades.

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Dynamic scoring sets up your cycle of excellence: The more people use your loyalty program, the more they receive offers that resonate. And the more they receive offers that resonate, the more likely they are to engage. The more they engage, the better your data.

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Pillar 1: Customizing benefits & rewards for the individual

We start by identifying which benefits and rewards are relevant to your customers—using data to discern individual preferences for emotional, economic and experiential rewards.

Emotional rewards

The main objective of the emotional reward is to build affinity with your customers.

• Good vibes: Emotional rewards should spark positive feelings in customers—such as when they are thanked for making a purchase through a reward or incentive. This is pertinent because nearly one in five customers indicate that their program makes them feel special and recognized.¹
• Doing good: When purchases and loyalty contribute to giving back, customers identify as being a part of the solution.
• Novelty: Unlocking access to unique offers creates positive feelings of exclusivity and prestige that further strengthen and promote brand affinity—encouraging your customers to return.

Economic rewards

Cash-based rewards like discounts, freebies and cash back provide customers with tangible value in exchange for their time, effort and spend. Research shows that 50% of customers join loyalty programs to earn rewards on everyday purchases.¹

It is crucial that these types of economic rewards provide immediacy and accessibility. Rewards with a quick payoff reinforce the customer behaviors you most want to drive through your loyalty program—accelerating engagement and strengthening the meaning of every interaction.

Why does speed win? Loyalty programs enrich customers by funneling cash back into their accounts and optimizing their spend through discounts. In fact, 66% of customers modify their brand spend to maximize loyalty benefits.¹

Experiential rewards

Go beyond traditional discounts and energize your customers with exciting and experiential rewards—such as exclusive access to premium rewards tiers, live events and other special outings. Experiential rewards create positive memories that will be forever linked to your brand.

Providing the right combination of monetary and non-monetary rewards is an effective way to increase engagement, extend your marketing dollars and deliver exceptional and well-rounded customer experiences.

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Pillar 2: Cultivating group dynamics

To seek belonging is human. When your customers have access to participate, express opinions and share with others, their need for community is satisfied. From Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to Brewer’s Optimal Distinctiveness Theory, there has been considerable research devoted to the psychological desire for human connection.

A loyalty and engagement platform that cultivates belonging through community encourages repeat visits, check-ins and interactions with your brand.

• Sharable offers and deals: Enable customers to share their rewards with friends and family to encourage positive group experiences empowered by mutual savings.
• Milestones: Reaching the next level is worthy of celebration and should be visible to your community at large. Badges and shareable milestones are a great way to remind customers that they are involved.
• Polls: Enabling customers to vote on new products and take quick pulse polls gives them a voice. In return, you gain data-driven insights to curate more relevant offers and increase engagement.

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Pillar 3: Forging connections over shared values

Today’s customers gravitate to brands that share their personal values. In one survey, 77% of Americans say they are motivated to buy from companies that make the world a better place. In fact, a strong majority of companies who have demonstrated their corporate responsibility have seen growth of 10% or higher in the past three years.²

Empowering customers to give back to worthy causes through your loyalty program is a powerful way to showcase your brand values—and customization is essential to aligning customers with the causes most relevant to them.

• Microgiving: Provide customers with a means to donate a specified amount to their chosen charity from a curated list of prescreened organizations.
• Points: Grant customers the ability to redeem their rewards currency for charitable donations.

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Ready, set, engage

Loyalty is built on the premise of purposeful and relevant interactions. Contact us to learn more about how Augeo can help your enterprise elevate and accelerate engagement, foster loyalty and maximize brand affinity through our proven, flexible and scalable platform technology.

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¹ Forbes | 50 Stats That Show The Importance Of Good Loyalty Programs, Even During A Crisis

² Harvard Business School Online | 15 eye-opening corporate social responsibility statistics