Tips and tricks to build an effective B2B loyalty programme with Prosper²

A loyalty programme is traditionally thought of as B2C tool providing value to customers for shopping again and again. In exchange for their loyalty customers collect points and rewards.

If you are a B2B business there is a strong chance you are using something to incentivise buying in bulk or for ordering more. Most common would be volume discounts, but there are also sales promotions, incentives and even prizes. We even know of holidays gifted to the company who orders the most in a year!

It is easy to see the benefits of a loyalty programme in the B2C space but there are also many benefits in B2B as well. The same principles apply, the more customers you retain the more money you make and loyalty programmes are proven to get customers shopping more frequently boosting profitability.

Prosper² Rewards allows you to reward based on volume to sell more, profit to make more  and can even give additional perks based on how many purchases have been made over time.

Keep it Simple!

Your customers are other businesses. They have their own business to run. They’re not likely to be looking for all the bells and whistles in your loyalty programme but they are likely to be looking to see if you have one. They don’t want to evaluate lots of actions that you may reward.

We recommend keeping your B2B loyalty programme very simple and easy to understand. Your customer wants to quickly evaluate if your programme provides enough incentive to join. If it does you will become the preferred provider of whatever you sell.

A simple program gives B2B customers the basics they need to join your program, without overwhelming them. They are just as busy as you and will not appreciate a really fancy loyalty program.

Communicate Via Email

Normally you would expect a combination of on site communication and email communication. However, B2B loyalty programmes are slightly different.

When a customer interacts with your business they may already know exactly what they want and are looking for a efficient transaction. They want ordering through you to be as quick and painless as possible. They want a loyalty programme that is set up in much the same way.

These types of loyalty members don’t want to be bogged down in the details. They want to place an order, know they are receiving extra value from your programme and get back to the 100’s of other things they are doing.

Send emails to them after every purchase informing them of how many points you are rewarding them and why. Include anything else you think they need to know such as how they can earn bonus points next time or how many points you’ll reward them for an increase in spend.

Email allows your customer to go back and find something easily in their inbox. They can get the details in their own time rather than having to go to your site to find them.

Reward Volume Bonus Points

With Prosper² you can reward bonus points based on how much a customer is purchasing. This is an easy way to add value to higher volume sales without having to run separate programmes.

You can reward extra points for an increased amount of spend or number of units purchased. Or, for an amount of spend over a certain value which usually works better in B2B loyalty programs as your customer may be buying a single large product, but you want them to choose the slightly more expensive one.

Increase Point Earnings to Hit Targets

You are approaching your quarter or year end and are noticing you are short of your sales goals or projections. You can use Prosper² Rewards to incentivise purchases at key times.

With your rewards programme and marketing campaign you can run extra points events to stir up sales. You can email your members list and let them know that this week, weekend, or day you will be offering 3x (or whatever you choose) the number of points on each purchase. This gives your customers an incentive to shop during a key time of year for you.

Use Tiers

Tiers are milestones that a customer can cross to join a new group. You can use tiers to segment loyal customers based on their past interactions with your business.

Popular benefits used in tiers:

• Bonus points on spend within a tier
• Free shipping within certain tiers
• Bonus points reward at a milestone

These encourage customers to strive for that tier to get the reward. When they get there you will be giving them more, but the rewards also encourage them to order from you more often. They get more the more they order.

And finally…

Why not implement a more traditional sales incentive? If a customer spends x amount with your business you reward them with a huge points bonus.

The beauty of giving points for each purchase is that you are not giving a gift for the purchase, you are giving loyalty points. You don’t want your purchasing managers to accept gifts for a purchase, but you do want them to accept discounts/points for your business!

If you have any questions about building a B2B loyalty programme for your business please feel free to contact the Prosper² Client Services team.