From coffee shop franchises to quaint cafés serving specialty single-origin coffee. Building a community of regulars who choose your coffee shop day after day could be a challenge—but that doesn’t mean it’s not attainable. You need something more powerful than just beans and brews: loyalty.
A well-crafted loyalty program can turn occasional customers into raving fans—but only if they know it exists and feel inspired to join. So how do you promote your coffee shop loyalty program in a way that gets attention and drives action?
There are many different buyer personas which you can cater to but one thing’s for sure—your loyalty program should be easy to understand and instantly appealing, especially if you’re trying to attract newcomers. Make sure the rewards of your loyalty program brings value to your customers. Think:
When you’re developing marketing content for your loyalty program, highlight your best perk front and centre:
“Join our free loyalty program and get a free coffee on your next visit.”
Keep the value clear and upfront—no fine print, no confusion. Low barriers to entry help make your loyalty program more attractive to customers.
Your café is a physical space—so utilize all that real estate to promote your loyalty program! Don’t feel like you’re limited to promoting your loyalty program online. Think about all the different points of interaction that might occur when a customer walks into your café, what will they see?
Place reminders:
Pro Tip: Use eye-catching designs that reflect your shop’s vibe—cozy, quirky, or minimalist, let the branding match.
We’ve talked about front line promotions and POS loyalty programs to bring awareness and remind customers of loyalty programs. Train your team to promote the program wherever it makes sense:
If possible, offer incentives for staff who promote program sign-ups and redemptions—turning promotion into a fun, team-wide challenge. Customer engagement is important, but don’t neglect your employees!
Having a digital presence is your ticket to growing your business’ exposure, and it doesn’t have to be a costly investment. It offers your customers a direct way to stay connected with your business and receive information firsthand. Promoting your loyalty program through these digital channels ensures that you reach a wider audience without relying just on front line promotions and word of mouth, and maybe you’ll even reach new customers in the process.
Here are some digital channels that you can use to push your loyalty program further:
Make it easy to sign up for your loyalty program online and collect emails or phone numbers. Your contact list is a very valuable resource when it comes to understanding your customer base and developing marketing initiatives for your business. But make sure you abide by the legal implications of collecting and using personal data!
We said to make a simple offer, and now we’re telling you to get creative. Sounds contradictory, but there are layers to it. New and occasional promotions help your business stay relevant and top-of-mind. Coffee and other beverage shop loyalty programs typically follow a similar structure:
So if you want to stand out from the fierce competition, make noise. There are so many other ways you can perk up your loyalty program:
Remember what we said about digital promotions? Put these perks up on your social media channels. Be strategic about the rewards that you offer and their validity periods. The psychological implications of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out) from limited time offers can be a huge driver to the traction these campaigns gain.
Editor’s note: Even better if you have software integrations to help you keep track of all this data! By understanding program sign-up rates relative to limited time offers, redemption rates, and other metrics, you can identify what promotions work best for growing your loyalty program and keeping customers loyal.
With a tool like DataCandy, you can even incentivize higher spends! For example, if the average beverage order value is $5, create a perk that offers bonus points for orders above $6. Customers will now gain a reward for a small incremental change in their total order value—maybe it’s just the nudge someone needs to pick up that pastry they’ve been thinking about all day long.
New customers are great, but keeping them is key. The same concept applies to loyalty programs—adoption is important, but retention of loyal members is arguably more important. A timely nudge from an email or text can help keep your brand top-of-mind when members reach a new membership tier or are close to a reward.
Messages like:
This keeps your program top-of-mind and encourages repeat visits. Utilize personalization wherever possible, so that you’re reaching the right audience, at the right moments. With data analytics tools or loyalty program software, you’ll have insights to customer data to help you create attractive and timely loyalty promotions and communications.
New customers are great, but keeping them is key. The same concept applies to loyalty programs—adoption is important, but retention of loyal members is arguably more important. Make sure you remind your loyal customers that you value them—it’s more cost effective to keep an existing customer than to acquire new ones!
Similar to celebrating milestones, giving them a nudge from an email or text based on the time they made their last purchase is a good way to start! Maybe it’s a discount offer, or even a freebie. Let your customers know you haven’t forgotten about them:
Your customers support your business every day. A loyalty program is your chance to say thank you in a tangible way, and give them more reasons to return. With the right promotion strategy, your coffee shop can become more than just a stop for caffeine—it becomes part of your customers’ daily rituals.