4 Ways To Build Customer Loyalty

Silly season, sensible marketing

As summer and the holiday season hits full swing, it will bring with it new customers and a much needed boost in sales. But the true potential of this season is in turning these new customers into regulars.

According to Invesp it costs 5x more on average to convert a new customer than it does to convert an existing customer. Therefore, investing in some form of customer loyalty initiative is a sure-fire way to keep your customers coming back to your restaurant to spend their hard earned cash.

Marsello: convert one-off customers into die-hard regulars

Marsello is a retention marketing tool that seamlessly integrates with Lightspeed. It lets you customise and automate effective marketing strategies at low cost and high returns.

Below are the top four Marsello features to get you started on growing customer loyalty for your hospo venue:

• 1. Loyalty programme
• 2. Encourage growth with a referral programme
• 3. Email campaigns
• 4. Track Your Customer Service

1. Loyalty programme

Capture new customers’ details with a loyalty programme. Starting a customer loyalty programme is beneficial for both you and your customers – they get rewarded for their repeat business with a freebie or discount and in return you get their contact details.

By offering incentives, like a free coffee after 10 visits, new customers are more likely to give you their information and it’s a great opportunity for you to grow your database. 

Need inspiration?

Australian award-winning pie makers, Pinjarra Bakery, grew their repeat purchase rate by 58% with Lightspeed & Marsello.

Pinjarra Bakery uses creative reward programs like ‘I only need a COFFEE with days ending in ‘y’ ☕.’  The redemption rate for this reward is approximately 46%. This means that almost half of the customers who signed up for the loyalty program used it!

Read more about Pinjarra’s loyalty program here.

2. Encourage growth with a referral program

The festive season is ideal for growing your business through referrals, where you get to tap on your customer’s network. 

Marsello makes referral programs that much easier by integrating it with your loyalty program so that all your data is collected in one place.

Australian wholefood kitchen, Rough and Bare, is a Lightspeed user running a simple and successful referral program. They offer 100 points to their customers when their referral places the first order, while the referral is encouraged with a 10% discount.

3. Email campaigns

Specialised holiday campaigns are the bread and butter of this season. With Christmas around the corner, it’s prime time to create email marketing campaigns that offer seasonal specials. And guess what? Marsello lets you do that too.

With Marsello, you can send automated emails to target customers with personalised messaging. This includes ‘thank you’ emails that are triggered after the first purchase to birthday emails with special offers. You can also automate emails featuring regular offers to foster loyalty.

4. Track Your Customer Service

For new customers, their first impression of your brand is strongly influenced by the service they receive. But when it gets busy over the holidays, maintaining the same level of customer service can be challenging.

An effective way of ensuring excellent service is by collecting customer feedback. Asking customers for private feedback right after they’ve experienced your service will give you accurate insight.

With Marsello, you can trigger feedback requests after every order. The data is presented in a user-friendly dashboard giving you full and easy visibility of your customer service.  

Is Marsello right for me?

Let’s recap. Marsello lets you:

• build a loyalty programme that grows your database and encourages return customers 
• tap into your customer’s network with referral programs, allowing you to grow your business 
• send customised and automated emails to your database to inform them of your offers and specials 
• collect real-time customer feedback so that you can fine-tune your customer service

While these four steps are a great stepping stone, Marsello is a powerful retention tool that can do a lot more. It can also be integrated with social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook – where you can build customer segments and advertise to potential customers.