Everyone knows the old rules of thumb when it comes to loyalty, “80% of a brand’s revenue is driven by 20% of its customers.” And “the cost of acquiring a new customer is 5x that of retaining an existing.” These business stats were why brands across industries launched loyalty programs.
Amid strong competition and ever-growing consumer expectations for wanting a convenient, seamless customer experience, it’s time to step up your game if you want to be part of a consumer’s consideration set.
If it’s time to enhance your loyalty program and improve your company’s customer experience, there’s no better solution to consider than the one designed to help brands create a frictionless experience: Mobile Wallet.
The Problems With Traditional Loyalty Programs
Today, companies have to overcome several hurdles if they want to have a successful loyalty program.
- Missing the mark with customer expectations. Over the past decade, customer expectations have continued to increase, especially when it comes to their desire for more personalized, seamless loyalty experiences. The concern is that brands are not keeping pace with the rising expectations as only 52% of loyalty program members are 'very satisfied' with the loyalty programs they're enrolled in. The volume and frequency of generic emails from brands only serve to emphasize this point with members each day.
- Lack of clarity when it comes to member benefits. Consumer engagement with loyalty programs is hindered by members not knowing their points, rewards, or program status. Past surveys suggest that as many as 70% of members don’t know or are unsure of their points even though 93% would make a purchase or consider doing so more often if they received better communication from the brand. That’s because the process often requires logging into an account online or a mobile app and then searching for their points or manually activating rewards.
- Risk to an organization's financial health. By making consumers ‘discover’ where they stand in a loyalty program membership can start to feel like more work than a reward. With the global redemption rate of loyalty programs being less than 50%, the remaining points/rewards are left as liabilities on a company's balance sheet - benefiting neither the company nor the consumer.
What Is a Mobile Wallet?
Mobile Wallet is the summary term for the native apps, “Apple Wallet” and “Google Wallet” built into all iOS and Android devices. They require no extra download or sign-up by customers to use.
While Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are best known for holding consumers’ credit cards and enabling contactless mobile payments, they offer much more than just a digital payment option at checkout.
With Mobile Wallet, coupons, loyalty membership cards, boarding passes, event tickets, gift cards, and other items one might find in their back pocket or purse, are instead housed and organized as “passes” in a single location – a person’s mobile device – where they can easily be found and used.
Unlike physical versions of the said examples, their digital counterparts are impossible to lose track of: once a mobile wallet pass is saved to a user’s device it remains in their mobile wallet unless they take action to remove the pass.
And like any other mobile app, you can send notifications to consumers' lock screens to remind them to take an action or provide them with real-time updates.
What Is a Mobile Wallet Loyalty Program?
A mobile wallet loyalty program is a digital marketing strategy that enables instant, low-friction enrollment into your loyalty program and carves out a permanent brand presence on your customers' mobile devices with a digital version of a physical loyalty card.
With 97% of Americans owning smartphones, the mobile channel creates wider accessibility for you to reach consumers on their most personal devices in a relevant, non-intrusive way. So it only makes sense that the loyalty programs that are most appealing to consumers and members are the ones that guarantee this personalized nirvana.
Not only does mobile broaden your ability to personally engage consumers it also meets their desires for a digital experience. Seventy-nine percent of U.S. consumers are more likely to join a loyalty program that doesn’t require them to carry a physical card. If you pair this with the fact that 53% of consumers say they want loyalty programs that are easy to use, then Mobile Wallet is the obvious answer for brands who want to seamlessly enroll, engage, and retain loyalty members.
Why Use Mobile Wallet for Your Loyalty Program?
Mobile Wallet has several unbeatable advantages for your loyalty program:
- Instant delivery of points and rewards. By providing easy access to these details, consumers can actually take advantage of the rewards they have, and redeem them more frequently.
- Real-time updates to account information. In addition to the loyalty card reflecting a member’s key account details, it can be regularly updated in real-time to reflect account activity such as points earned, progress to a new reward, and personalized, loyalty-specific content. By having the ability to dynamically update the content on the mobile wallet passes with new information at any time, it gives you a versatile, persistent, and visual way to continually engage with program members.
- No internet connection is required. Poor or zero connectivity means your customers won’t be able to access your mobile app. Mobile Wallet, on the other hand, does not require any cell service.
- Tracking capabilities for ROI attribution. Mobile Wallet can track every action a member takes using their card, from the initial viewing of the pass to the transactions made both online and in person. Because Mobile Wallet can be uniquely tracked and easily scanned, it offers a clear path to ROI analysis of your loyalty program.
- Ongoing communication via notifications. You can further improve reward redemption by automatically triggering reminders through lock screen notifications to nudge your program members to act when they might not have otherwise. Just like a push notification a user receives from a mobile app, Mobile Wallet can deliver a message to a user’s lock screen, giving you the ability to communicate with your members in a highly relevant, timely fashion.
How Mobile Wallet Loyalty Cards Work
A mobile wallet loyalty card can be scanned when making a purchase to earn points and redeem rewards, similar to scanning a physical card with a barcode or a contactless credit card.
Because Mobile Wallet is a native app on all mobile devices, a digital loyalty card can easily be distributed without requiring current members to download or sign up for anything additional.
Mobile wallet loyalty cards can easily be distributed through any of your existing marketing channels – from in-store signage, print and TV advertising, and direct mail, to lower-cost digital channels like SMS, email, web, social, and your mobile app.
Mobile Wallet Loyalty Program Best Practices
Here are a few business considerations to keep in mind when thinking about what it takes to launch a successful mobile wallet loyalty program.
Pre-Launch
- Consider your target audience. Consumer preference on Mobile Wallet looks very different depending on age. In a recent survey, many consumers that were 55 and older said they don’t currently use Mobile Wallet nor do they have any interest in doing so in the future.
- Make sure your systems can integrate. Before you commit to launching a mobile wallet loyalty program, make sure your loyalty management system can seamlessly integrate with your mobile wallet provider.
Launch
- Keep things simple. Every call-to-action to enroll in your mobile wallet loyalty program should have easy-to-follow directions for how a consumer can sign up. When possible, requiring as few steps as possible for your customers to successfully enroll in your program is key.
- Incorporate education into your promotion. Be sure to secure some promotional placements – like a dedicated email or section on your website – that allow you to expand on the value proposition for signing up for the mobile wallet loyalty program (i.e. highlight some benefits consumers receive with the mobile wallet loyalty card, such as real-time updates on points balance and rewards).
- Incent and reward enrollment. Regardless of how easy you make it to enroll in your mobile wallet loyalty program, offering an incentive – instantly earn a number of points, for instance – will increase your enrollment rates and quickly generate sales.
Mobile Wallet Loyalty Program Spotlight: Chipotle
Whether launching Mobile Wallet as a separate channel or integrating it within one of your existing channels - like email or your mobile app - Vibes makes it easy for brands like yours to activate as well as understand the business impact it’s driving.
According to Apple, 30% of users that install a brand or business’ mobile wallet pass also downloaded their mobile app. With millions of active Rewards members engaging with their app-based program, Chipotle chose to team up with Vibes to integrate and manage the Chipotle Rewards loyalty pass directly in their mobile app. Now Chipotle Rewards members can access their digital loyalty card in their app or in their mobile wallet to scan and earn points anytime they make a purchase online or dining in.
Through our premier, secure Mobile Wallet solution and wallet APIs that are easy to integrate with, Chipotle was able to launch their program in a matter of weeks.
Using Vibes for Your Mobile Wallet Loyalty Program
As an original launch partner of both Apple and Google for Mobile Wallet in 2012, the Vibes mobile engagement platform has successfully created and managed millions of mobile wallet passes for our customers, with an average 65% mobile wallet install rate.
There are three key reasons why brands like Chipotle, KBP Brands, Polo Ralph Lauren, and others partner with us for their Mobile Wallet needs:
- Connected to the systems you’re already using. We can deliver and manage mobile wallet passes at scale and can seamlessly integrate with other CDP/loyalty systems.
- Efficient program deployment. Everything we have in place today enables our customers to test and learn faster and troubleshoot issues more quickly. Built to absorb any and all challenges an internal development team is likely to face when launching a new solution, we enable brands to focus their time and resources on other aspects of their business.
- Faster time to market. We get you launched and live in a matter of weeks, not months. Plus, our APIs integrate with POS and CRM systems to help manage redemption data and real-time updates.
Whether you’re in the business of incentivizing your customers or rewarding your loyalty members, get in touch with us to learn about how Vibes is in the business of optimizing your marketing programs with mobile solutions like Mobile Wallet that drive results.
The Bottom Line
Since today’s consumer and their trusty mobile device are connected at the hip, your brand has an incredible opportunity to always be at your members’ sides with Mobile Wallet – the passes are easily accessible and simple to use, providing an ideal customer experience.
Consumers already know the benefits of using Mobile Wallet. Couple that adoption with capabilities like keeping members updated on their points balance and available rewards through real-time reminders, and you have the creation of a virtuous cycle of increased purchase frequency and member satisfaction.
Let's chat and dive further into how Mobile Wallet can help elevate your loyalty program to new heights.
