Minimum amount of Time & Resources needed to launch a Loyalty Program

The Minimum amount of Time & Resources you need to launch a Loyalty Program.

When you’re thinking of adding a loyalty program to your marketing strategy, a critical factor in whether it generates positive ROI is how well you implement it. However, time & resources are limited for every organization so here we outline the minimum you’ll need to launch your program.

With the right provider, launching a loyalty program can be fairly fast and efficiently, as long as basic requisites in place. You might think that designing your loyalty program strategy is the most time intensive part, right? Well you’re partially right, the complexity of your program and customer experience actually drive how intensive the rest of the implementation will be whether it includes hardware, software, product customization, branding, communications, training, and additional support. 

We always suggest keeping it simple when launching or re-launching your program because you can alway add more offers/tiers/benefits with time. Brands often feel pressure to launch with a bang and their entire program ready to go, but it actually doesn’t take that much to get customers excited and most people have a hard time remembering all the perks.... Think about it. Really think right now about some of your favorite loyalty programs. Do you know what all the benefits are without having to look them up?

Another “trap” brands run into is thinking you must have all your exact loyalty strategy defined before signing with a vendor to speed up the process. Unless someone on your team is a loyalty expert, this can often slow down the process. Your vendor will have experience launching hundreds of loyalty programs and will take many things into consideration when designing your program such as the other technologies you’ve chosen to integrate, the internal resources you have to launch/maintain the program, the operational impact of certain campaigns, etc. Do your homework and know what you like/dislike about programs you’ve seen, but also let your vendor help you design a program built for success.

Let's assume you took our advice on keeping your strategy simple to start. Below are all the things you’ll need at minimum to launch your program successfully.  

• Vendors: 
• • Loyalty provider,  POS system, & online ordering / e-commerce platform
• Team-members
  • Someone who can approve your loyalty program strategy
    • At larger companies this might be a group of people and at smaller organisations it might just be your marketing lead or the owner
  • Someone technical to advocate and support any integrations
    • In a larger company and where you have multiple integrations this will be more than one person, but if no integrations are required you do not need this person at all.
  • Someone who can communicate and train your in-store team on how to use/promote the program
    • In a large company this might be an internal operations and support team or in smaller organizations this might be your general manager
  • Someone who manages your website and social media to add all the links and information about your new program
  • The amount of time you need from each team member will depend on how complex you decided to make your program. The more you want it to do the more you’ll need from each group.
• Materials
  • Here is a checklist of items that are helpful to have ahead of onboarding:
    • Business metrics such as average ticket, what you think your customer frequency is, popular items, popular day-parts, etc. A well as which loyalty programs you like and dislike.
      •  This will help your loyalty provider advise on a strategy
    • Branding assets such as logos and graphics you’ll want to use (including the name of your loyalty program)
    • A list of all your stores, their relevant information such as addresses, phone numbers, points of contact, etc. 
    • A list of all your products and their categories if you’re going to run any item level campaigns to start
    • A point of contact for each vendor you want your loyalty program to integrate with
    • Any customer lists such as e-club or previous loyalty program you may have so they can be migrated into your platform

When all of this is set and done, with the right provider like Spendgo, you can go live in as little as 3-4 weeks. Brands with more stores, complexity, and integrations can expect to launch in 2-3 months. This is all a vast improvement over launching in 6-12 months which is the standard timeline for many providers.