It’s more vital than ever for enterprises to provide seamless multichannel experiences, especially when it comes to customers parting with their cash. Offering a variety of payment methods and a smooth checkout process are no longer optional features; they’re becoming necessities for a successful business.
Online shopping is one of the most popular online activities globally, so business leaders including heads of payment, digital innovators, and CMOs are looking for ways to stand out, as e-commerce grows.
Merchants in all industries have been forced to react quickly in the face of a rapid and significant shift in customer shopping behavior. For many businesses, the pandemic necessitated digitization in order to keep cash flowing, yet merely opening an online store is no longer enough to keep customers satisfied.
Payments are frequently pigeonholed as purely transactional aspects of people’s lives with little to do with marketing. They aren’t, however, a one-and-done encounter that terminates at the cash register. Instead, they have evolved into valuable experiences that marketers can use to build long-lasting bonds between businesses and their customers. For optimum impact, current digital payment applications can incorporate rewards and incentives into the process.
Also Read: Three Strategies for Strengthening Digital-First Consumer Engagement
Here’s how marketers can meaningfully combine rewards and payments:
Making good use of points
Allowing rewards to be used as a practical and broad currency is the next marketing frontier. Businesses can enhance the possibility that rewards will be used and promote intended behaviours by allowing users to pay with points.
Accepting points as payment online, in-store, and via mobile wallet appeals to a wide range of customers and takes the guesswork out of selecting loyalty rewards. Accepting points as payment has the added benefit of funnelling money back into the company. Members of loyalty programs are a captive audience, and businesses can keep their attention by engaging with them on a regular basis and assisting them in putting their points to good use.
Building digital solutions
Because of the pandemic pushing record traffic to online and mobile purchasing channels, digital payments are nearing a tipping point. Marketers who incorporate digitally friendly rewards and incentives into the new habitual payment procedure will benefit. Because they are always within reach, digital payments connect consumers with brands no matter where they are, and enabling incentives and rewards for digital delivery and redemption are particularly effective and timely ways to increase long-term engagement and customer retention. People can use digitally connected incentives in-store, online, or on their phones, giving them plenty of flexibility to adapt their spending habits as they change or depending on the situation.
Also Read: Three Strategies to Focus on When Shifting to Outcome-Based Marketing
Future marketing opportunities
After the point of sale, effective rewards and incentives can give marketers with high-value touch points.
Marketers can acquire data consumers willingly supply to drive future strategy and create tailored promotions and offers on an individual level by introducing incentives, rewards, and loyalty points into the checkout process. These acts, whether they’re urging customers to join a loyalty program, providing an incentive for downloading their app, or rewarding customers for completing specific transactions with their brand within their mobile wallet, can pay off in the long run. They can also lead to cross- and up-sell opportunities that attract new customers, boost the value of existing customers, and increase basket size, all while maximizing ROI over time.
Smart marketers who incorporate rewards and incentives into the payment process increase communication and strengthen relationships between their companies and their customers. However, without modernization, the incentives that marketers use in their reward mix may fall short. Marketers can use payments to improve their programs and create good brand experiences that will increase reward value, engagement, loyalty, sales and foot traffic in the future.
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