If you want to get clients in the door of your spa or massage practice more often, consider launching a loyalty program to reward them for their repeat business. An article written by global management consulting firm McKinsey that ran in Forbes last year entitled “Making Loyalty Pay: Six Lessons from the Innovators” indicates that participation by U.S. consumers in loyalty programs has been on the upswing. Between 2008 and 2012, U.S. loyalty membership increased by 10 percent per year to reach 23 memberships per household.
However, a McKinsey study also found despite the significant number of participants in loyalty programs they do not always pay off for the companies that offer them. The problem is not that loyalty programs don’t have the potential to add long-value to your business. The issue is that many programs are poorly designed and once launched are not given enough attention. Successful loyalty programs need to continually innovate and stay current with market trends and what customers want.
Throw out the Cookie Cutter
The goal of a good loyalty program is to provide value for both your spa or massage practice and for the client. To achieve this, the program needs to be based on what want clients want rather than focused on promoting your services and retail offerings. Before you even begin your program, talk to some of your long-standing clients to understand what they value about your business. Find out how well they understand your complete service and product offering. Ask questions about the competition, too, since it helps to know what clients value about competitive offerings.
Choose a Type of Program
- Accumulating points to apply for future services or product purchases
- Discounts on select treatments
- Rewards. For example, after a certain number of massages or body treatments, clients are entitled to a facial massage or pedi treatment.
Your program can be based around something as simple as a punch card or a credit card-style loyalty card; although designing and producing these cards – as well as purchasing a system to read them can be costly. It may be most cost efficient to simply to track clients’ loyalty through a software program that integrates with your website so that clients can log in and check their points.
Whatever program you offer, make sure it’s it easy for clients to attain points and redeem them. Programs that make it difficult to achieve rewards will only generate a negative response among your clients.
Marketing your Program
Give your program a name that is memorable and reflects how your clients feel about your service and brand. Don’t stop marketing your campaign after enrollment. Promote your campaign on your site, through special social media promotions and in any email marketing campaigns.
Finally, be sure to track results. Tracking will enable you to identify your most valuable customers so you can continue to tailor your campaign to their spending patterns. In this way, you’ll be able to tailor your campaigns to increase the loyalty and revenue from your most valuable customers.
Not only will loyal customers stay, they spend more dollars over time and are happy to sing your praises to friends and family.