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Rewards programs are everywhere. Credit cards, frequent flier miles, grocery chains and drug stores. You can hardly buy a book or pack of gum without them asking you if you have a card or if you're a member. Last Friday I attended a board meeting at swanky Del Frisco's on Boston's waterfront and guess what? They have a rewards program. For every dollar spent you get a point redeemable for gift cards and dinners. It creates an incentive to dine there - especially if you are near the next threshold to redeem your points for a gift.
The incentives are often in the form of "points" that can be redeemed for something of value. It could be a Starbucks Gift Card or discount products and services your company offers. Programs also include status awards such as badges or titles of status for the users profile. Another strategy is to allow users that reach a certain threshold to accumulate more points for the same activity; 1.5 points per 1 point earned by an ordinary customer.
Rewards programs can work for a variety of types of businesses from local consumer businesses to enterprise B2B. The program design and messaging can be targeted toward your audience and the rewards program structured in a way that makes sense to your audience. Getting people to promote your content is great but you should gear your program to provide the greatest incentives to actions that help you reach your business goals.
The points structure should have many levels and incentives; but there should be a bigger payoff for high value tasks and thresholds. Repeat purchases, referrals, attending a webinar or promoting an important event should have higher points values than tweeting a regular article. You should structure your program so you can plan regular campaigns and promotions. Special offers, contests, product launches or sales initiatives can be structured to activate your audience across media channels. You can offer participants special reward incentive; double points for a week, digital downloads for Tweets, and other gifts related to a specific campaign. A recent example is Microsoft's Cannes 2011 competition, which required users to create "an entertaining and engaging 60- to 90-second film that shows how a Windows 7 PC is at the core of a student's life."
There are many tech companies offering social rewards programs. If you do not need considerable customization one of these services may work for you.
PunchTab is a new loyalty-marketing startup from YouSendIt co-founder Ranjith Kumaran and former YouSendIt employee Mehdi Ait Oufkir. You can sign up for free and use a simple embed code to start rewarding users for social behavior online (commenting, visiting daily, content sharing, "liking" items on Facebook) with actual, real-life discounts and gift cards that PunchTab provides from retail partners such as Amazon. Businesses can also offer users more relevant, site-specific rewards (t-shirt, premium content etc) and run contests and raffles using PunchTab's promotions module.
Geared toward larger brands, CrowdTwist is one of the most comprehensive reward program applications I've seen. They also have a robust points management system but Crowdtwist provides a powerful tracking system to measure every time a consumer interacts with the brand. The software can has an open API and can be integrated with existing websites and applications. Furthermore CrowdTwist facilitates points-based CPA/CPC sponsorship packages allowing for new a new ad revenue stream. If you can are ready to make a larger investment and have a fairly large audience CrowdTwist is the way to go.
Los Angeles-based Social Rewards is a loyalty-marketing program that rewards points to users for tweeting and posting to Facebook about the brands they like. A user can earn five points for a tweet and as much as 250 points if their social-media postings lead to room bookings. "We tap in to a brands existing loyalty program or create custom loyalty programs like the one we did for Luxor [casino in Las Vegas]," says Joseph Morin, co-founder and CEO of Social Rewards. Social Rewards is working with lots of major casinos such as the Luxor and the Palms to provide incentives for social buzz.
Starting April 21, Caesars will use the platform to reward visitors at nine of the company's locations, including Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino and Paris Las Vegas, with Total Rewards Bonus Rewards credits when they check in via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram and Gowalla on their mobile devices. Topguest works with big brands and is more focused on travel and in particular mobile/location based check-ins. Aside from Caesars, Topguest's client list includes Virgin America, Holiday Inn, Avis and Comfort Suites, among others. Do you have any ideas for special rewards points, ways to provide social incentives? Do you know of other software or companies providing interesting rewards programs for brands? Please comment below.
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