Customer loyalty programmes vital for businesses to retain customers, report finds

52% of consumers are buying less as a result of the cost of living crisis according to an insights and analytics marketing company.

Deployteq polled over 2,000 consumers to track how their email marketing habits have changed as a result of a turbulent economic climate.

As wallets tighten, 28% of respondents are hunting for discounts and promotional codes in their inboxes, relying on customer loyalty programmes to maintain their spending habits.

This effort is more pointed amongst younger age groups. According to Deployteq, 33% of Gen Z and 33% of millennials actively hunt for discounts and promotional codes in their emails.

These numbers reflect the importance of finding ingenious ways to foster customer loyalty through perks. In fact, 74% of customers value discounts as a loyalty perk.

Becoming a customer magnet

Customer retention strategies, however, need to be strategically rolled out to land on both feet.

To Pauline Buil, Marketing Director for Deployteq, the key is data. “Data should be a central driver for brands and marketing teams, catering to customer desires to deliver greater customer experience, especially during a cost of living crisis where customer loyalty programs are vital for businesses.”

Data-led customer strategies can make it easier to personalise and target email promotions. Personalisation is increasingly becoming a constant demand from customers, as 37% of respondents felt frustrated when companies’ emails lacked knowledge about their previous purchases and tailored content.

In the race of customer retention, therefore, businesses relying on insights they gather from CRM and sales data are better placed to understand what buyers are looking for.

Could AI turbocharge personalisation and customer retention?

Personalising every individual email marketing campaign that goes out, however, would be incredibly time consuming. AI can turn this into a viable task in a matter of seconds.

As Simon Ward, CEO of Inspired Thinking Group, explains, “Data-driven insights are crucial to both marketing and retail, helping direct the use of automated technology to create personalised campaigns at a pace that truly engages customers and increases brand loyalty and business growth.”

Personalisation is particularly important with Gen Z, who tend to look beyond discounts for other value-add factors to become loyal to a brand. Understanding their values preference and personalising outreach, therefore, is key to retaining them as part of your customer base.

CRM systems that have adopted artificial intelligence can therefore be the difference between you and your competitor. The technology will help you roll out a larger number of marketing emails, as well as more personalised ones.

Einstein Analytics, a Salesforce Technology, is the world’s first generative AI for CRM. With the technology, small businesses can process customer data to better tailor marketing outreach.

As customers continue to find ways to cut price corners, enterprises that embrace AI will be better positioned to become customer magnets.