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Part
01
Consumer Behavior - Post-Purchase Offers
Types of offers that garner the best post-purchase engagement include: rebate offers, customer loyalty programs, reviews in exchange for gift cards and replenishment/reorder reminders.
REBATE OFFERS
- Rebate marketing offers customers cash discounts and incentives, after the purchasing of the product. For example, The customer usually pays the price in full at the retail and then sends via mail or fills out an online registration for the rebate application, which is then mailed to them at a later date.
- Rebates do not necessarily have to be only in the form of cash, they can also be in the form of another product being posted to an address after registering online.
- One advantage that goes hand in hand with rebates is that the retailer gets a wealth of customer information that they would otherwise not have gotten without the information on the rebate form. This subsequently proves valuable in their email marketing funnel in the generation of future sales.
- According to a marketing study, three out of four respondents are likely “most” or “all” of the time to submit a rebate form.
- In formulating a rebate marketing promotion, it is important to bear in mind that studies have shown that the bigger the rebate, the higher the sales increases.
- The more the effort the retailer places on the customer, the lower the retailer's sale. Therefore, it is profitable to design an easy-to-use rebate marketing program.
- This means that the faster a customer can complete a rebate, the more likely the retailer's sales will increase.
- Most marketing departments choose to use rebate fulfillment houses to outsource their rebate marketing programs because of the intensity of the rebating process.
- When selecting a rebate fulfillment house, an online rebate submissions system will make the rebate process easier to use. This means customers will have access to confirmations, as well as a portal where they can receive status updates on their rebates.
- A majority (75%) of the respondents to a Brightlocal survey mentioned that rebates are the most popular enticement when it comes to post-purchase loyalty to a particular brand.
CUSTOMER LOYALTY PROGRAMS
- Loyalty programs are an excellent way of increasing a customer's post-purchase loyalty with a particular brand because programs offer multiple ways through which customers can be rewarded.
- The most common loyalty program models are points program, spend programs, tiered programs, paid programs, and punch programs.
- Point programs give customers points that they can redeem for rewards or free products/services. These are very popular considering that point-based programs are easy to enroll in and 73% of loyalty programs are based on accumulating points.
- Spend programs allow customers to receive loyalty credit in exchange for the amount they spend. Successful spend programs are easy to set up and maintain.
- Tiered Programs are another version of points programs, which give customers rewards based on their level of spending or points.
- Whereas, paid loyalty programs rely on a monthly or annual fee that members pay in order to access to special services, discounts, or unique opportunities.
- Lastly, punch programs reward customers with “punches," based on their purchase of a particular product or service. Customers receive a punch for each purchase with the aim of receiving free-of-charge products or services of equal or less value.
- Studies show that customer loyalty comes from repeat purchases and if satisfied with a previous product, 84% of respondents say they would purchase the product again after the original wears out.
PRODUCT REVIEW IN EXCHANGE FOR A GIFT CARD
- When customers are enticed to write a product review in exchange for gift cards, they become advocates for the retailer's brand.
- Customers' whose relationship with a business has been built through providing reviews spend more money and are the best way to market the brand to others.
- A Brightlocal Local Consumer Review Survey found out that the majority (84%) of consumers value online reviews and personal recommendations equally.
- Additionally, 76% of the top consumer brands used in their study feature user reviews on their website and product pages as a way to increase purchases.
REPLENISHMENT REMINDER/RE-ORDER
- Replenishment reminders remind customers to re-stock a product before they run out. This kind of marketing is often employed by retailers of consumable products.
- According to industry research, an average of 50%-60% of replenishment reminders produce click rates of 40-50%.
- Additionally, these reminders have the highest click-to-open rate of any type of advertisement-based email.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
We began this research by looking for information that highlights the type of offers that keep consumers engaged, even after their initial purchase of a product/service. To do this, we referred to industry-specific publications and credible news outlets such as BusinessInsider and Forbes. We found that Brightlocal has conducted a consumer-review study analyzing consumer behavior using data from more than 3,500 agencies to try to find the measures currently used by businesses to maintain post-purchase engagements that lead to greater customer loyalty to their brand. After a deep-dive of this report, we found other similar studies on consumer behavior, particularly concerning post-purchase engagements and attractive offers that keep consumers coming back to the same product even after the initial purchase.
For example, we referred to reports from firms such as L2inc, which gathers business intelligence and benchmarks digital performance of consumer brands, that provided us with more insights on digital research. We referred to studies that focus on post-purchase loyalty and found out that, in addition to customer loyalty programs and rebates, most consumers of top brands consider writing a review in exchange for a gift card as an attractive offer. The prospect of reviewing keeps them loyal to a particular brand, even after their initial purchase. Once we found several industry-specific surveys and analyses from credible firms and third-party researchers, we were able to identify four types of offers that are proven to garner customer loyalty to a brand after purchasing that brands' products.